Colombia plane crash: Four children found alive in Amazon after 40 days

Four children person been recovered live much than a period aft their level crashed successful Colombia's Amazon jungle, the country's president has said.

The siblings, aged 13, nine, 4 and a one-year-old baby, were connected committee the level with their mother, a aviator and a co-pilot erstwhile it crashed connected 1 May.

Their parent and the different adults connected committee the level died.

President Gustavo Petro said uncovering the children aft weeks of searching was "a joyousness for the full country".

He called it a "magical day", adding: "They were alone, they themselves achieved an illustration of full endurance which volition stay successful history.

"These children are contiguous the children of bid and the children of Colombia."

Mr Petro shared a photograph of respective members of the subject and Indigenous assemblage tending to the siblings, who had been missing for 40 days.

He said the children were present receiving aesculapian attraction - and that helium had spoken to their grandfather, who told him "the parent jungle returned them".

The Cessna 206 craft the children and their parent had been travelling connected was flying from Araracuara, successful Amazonas province, to San José del Guaviare, erstwhile it issued a mayday alert owed to motor failure.

The bodies of the 3 adults who had been with them were recovered astatine the clang tract by the army.

Preliminary accusation from the civilian aviation authorization suggested the children escaped the wreckage and wandered into the rainforest to find help, Reuters quality bureau reported.

A monolithic hunt began and successful May, rescuers recovered items near down by the children, including a child's drinking bottle, a brace of scissors, a hairsbreadth necktie and a makeshift shelter.

Small footprints were besides discovered, which led hunt teams to judge they had survived the collision.

The children beryllium to the Huitoto indigenous radical and members of their assemblage hoped that their cognition of fruits and jungle endurance skills would springiness them a amended accidental of surviving.

Indigenous radical joined the hunt cognition and helicopters broadcasted a connection from the children's grandmother, recorded successful the Huitoto language, urging them to halt moving to marque them easier to locate.

Colombia's president came nether disapproval past period erstwhile a tweet published connected his relationship announced that the children had been found.

He erased the tweet the adjacent time saying that the accusation - which his bureau had been fixed by Colombia's kid payment bureau - could not beryllium confirmed.