A Philadelphia woman has turned up alive nearly two weeks after her family held a funeral and burial for her.

Services for 50-year-old Sharolyn Jackson were held on August 3.

Ms Jackson's mother Carrie Minney said the woman in the coffin was a dead ringer for her daughter, except for the nose. She said the family assumed something had happened to the nose during the embalming process.

Ms Jackson showed up at a mental health facility in Philadelphia last week.

A spokesman for the Philadelphia Department of Health said Ms Jackson's son and a social worker who knows her had viewed pictures of a woman's body and identified it as being hers.

The buried body will be exhumed in the hope of correctly identifying it.

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