Five people, including two children, have been rescued after spending three months adrift in the Pacific Ocean.

A group of nine people originally set off on July 30 for what should have been a routine one-hour boat journey between the islands of Murilo and Ruo in Indonesia.

However, after their vessel was caught in a storm, they were blown far off course.

The US Coast Guard, supported by the US Navy and Air Force, searched more than 25,000 nautical miles before calling off the operation on August 9.

Then, on Sunday, villagers on Fanning Island in Kiribati spotted the boat drifting near their remote home, around 3,400 miles west of Ruo.

Five of the nine people who had originally been on board were found alive. They have been named as Wanis Weita, Wboy Weita, Akinis David, Paul Paul and Tedwin Paul.

What happened to the other four people remains unknown.

Fanning Island, also known as Tabuaeran, is a remote coral atoll in the central Pacific.

Alexander Narruhn, governor of the Micronesian state of Chuuk, welcomed the rescue but said the families were still waiting for news of the missing passengers.

‘There were nine people aboard the boat that went missing,’ he said.

‘Thanks be to God for his love and mercy that five of the nine people have been found. We continue to pray for their four companions.’

Mr Narruhn has asked the president of the Federated States of Micronesia to begin talks with the Kiribati government to arrange for the survivors to return home.

The five have been taken in by the pastor of a local Uniting Church and received medical attention, according to local MP Kaotitaake Rakoroa.

However, Fanning Island has limited medical facilities and transport links because of its isolation.

Mr Rakoroa said the group should be moved to Kiritimati Island, the nearest urban centre, for further treatment as soon as possible.

Photographs and videos of the survivors were shared online on Sunday. They have not spoken publicly and have asked for privacy.

The rescue comes as the Pacific has been the setting for some of the world’s longest recorded survival stories at sea.

Japanese captain Oguri Jukichi and a sailor survived 484 days adrift after a storm damaged their ship. They lived on hundreds of bags of soybeans and distilled seawater before being rescued off the coast of what is now California in 1815.

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