Carolina Wilga, a German backpacker, was found alive after spending 12 days missing in the remote outback of Western Australia, according to local authorities. Wilga, 26, vanished on June 29 after her van became bogged down in the Karroun Hill Nature Reserve, a hostile and sparsely populated region north of the small town of Beacon.

Carolina Wilga’s rescue is a rare tale of survival for someone who was missing for so long in difficult and vast terrain, writes Rachel Clun