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Castaways saved from deserted isle after spelling ‘HELP’ with palm fronds

Three men plucked from south Pacific Island after being stranded for 9 days
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Three men spent several days marooned on an uninhabited Pacific island after a boating mishap. (AP Graphic)

Three men stranded on an uninhabited Pacific island survived for more than a week and used palm fronds to spell out HELP on the beach – leading to rescue by Navy and Coast Guard aviators who spotted the sign from several thousand feet in the air.

They had embarked March 31 in a 20-foot boat with an outboard motor from Pulawat Atoll, a small island with about an estimated 1,000 inhabitants in the Federated States of Micronesia about 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) east of the Philippines.

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