Twin Girls, 3, Survived Airport Blast. Their Mom Didn't

Adelma Tapia Ruiz is one of the first Brussels victims to be named
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 23, 2016 6:27 AM CDT
Twin Girls, 3, Survived Airport Blast. Their Mom Didn't
The blown out windows of Zaventem airport are seen after a deadly attack in Brussels, Belgium, Tuesday, March 22, 2016.   (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

No Brussels victim's story will be anything less than a tragedy, as the first publicly confirmed casualty—Adelma Tapia Ruiz—demonstrates. A native of Peru, the 36-year-old had called Brussels home for the past nine years and was headed to New York to visit family when the bombs detonated at Brussels' Zaventem airport. Tapia was killed, but the 3-year-old twin girls who were accompanying her survived, as did her Belgian husband, who was seeing his girls off, reports the New York Times.

One of the girls, Maureen, suffered shrapnel wounds in her arm; dad Christophe Delcambe was also hospitalized with injuries. The other daughter, Alondra, was unharmed. Tapia's brother explained that "the girls had been playing, and (Delcambe) followed them out of the gate area when the explosion occurred suddenly," with Peruvian media suggesting this saved their lives. Tapia's Facebook account is filled with family photos and pictures of the girls. (More Brussels attack stories.)

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