KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Tung Wei Jie, the Malaysian plantation manager held hostage for months by Philippine Muslim extremists, said he used a pre-dawn tropical downpour to escape his captors last week on Jolo Island, AFP reported Sunday (August 11th).

Tung told local media he escaped during a downpour from a bamboo hut in the jungle after his abductors, about 20 gunmen, went for pre-dawn prayers. "The hut was in the middle of nowhere. It was infested with mosquitoes. We each had one of our legs chained to the wooden pillars," Tung said, according to The Star.

Tung was abducted with his cousin in Sabah on Borneo Island last November.

He said his cousin, Wei Fei, who suffered from hypertension, was separated from him in April. Philippine police said last week he had died from illness.

"After my cousin was taken away, I began using a fork to cut through a link in the iron chain. I succeeded after almost a month... I waited another month. And then I got the chance to escape," Tung said.

He added that he prayed for rain to escape unnoticed, and ran "through dense jungle for hours and hours" taking only short breaks until reaching a village where he collapsed. A villager found him and notified police.