Six-year-old boy spent five days alone in the forest and survived

A six-year-old boy who got lost and spent five days in a dense forest has been found alive in Vietnam, the BBC reports .

According to the publication, the incident occurred in Yen Bai Province in the northwest of the country. On August 17, a boy named Dang Tien Lam was playing in a stream with nine of his brothers and sisters, and then got separated from the group and got lost in the mountains.

Local authorities organized a search involving more than 150 volunteers, as well as police and soldiers. Five days later, the child, weakened by hunger, was found by one of the local farmers, 52-year-old Li Van Nang.

He said he was clearing a field near the forest when he heard a child crying. "I'm so tired, I can't get up, please lift me up," the boy told him, sitting in cassava bushes about six kilometers from where he disappeared. Lam reportedly ate leaves and wild fruits for five days and drank water from a river.

Photos have circulated online showing locals carrying a child out of the forest in dirty clothes and with disheveled hair and immediately offering him cake.

"[The child told me] that when he got lost, he couldn't find his way home. And the more he walked, the harder it was for him to find his way out," the farmer who found him told local media.

Police called the discovery of the missing child alive a "miracle." "Congratulations on your safe return to your family," reads a post on the local police Facebook page.

The child's miraculous rescue has sparked jubilation on Vietnamese social media, with numerous posts congratulating the boy's family and thanking the members of the search party.

To get the main news faster, subscribe to our telegram and twitter .