Two sisters in Colombia who were separated as children by an avalanche 30 years ago have been reunited. Jaqueline and Lorena Sanchez thought they had lost each other forever in 1985 when the Tolima volcano erupted near their town of Armero. The hot, molten lava from the volcano melted nearby glaciers and caused four massive mudslides. These killed more than 20,000 of Armero's 29,000 inhabitants. Jaqueline, 33, and Lorena, 39, never found each other in the chaos that followed the disaster. They each assumed the other was among the deceased. Armero was the second most deadly volcanic disaster of the 20th century. Only the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelee in the Caribbean was deadlier.
The two sisters were adopted by different families and never knew each other's fate. They have both spent much of the past few decades looking for each other. They were reunited when DNA tests they gave to an organization that helped victims of the avalanches matched. Lorena told reporters: "It was beautiful and sad because it has been 30 years since the tragedy happened that I've come to find out what happened to my sister. I have to catch up with 30 years of her life and she has to do the same with me." Jaqueline said: "I'm excited, nervous, everything because suddenly, you don't know if you are going to be rejected.I wonder if she will love me. It's difficult. It's difficult to explain this moment."