Colombia's joy as children found alive in Amazon weeks after plane crash

Four children have been found alive in the Colombian rainforest, more than two weeks after a plane they were travelling in crashed.

More than 100 soldiers searched the Amazon with sniffer dogs after the plane vanished in the jungle on 1 May.

The bodies of the pilot and two adults were found earlier in the week.

Announcing the news, President Gustovo Petro said their discovery after "arduous search efforts" had brought "joy to the country".

Colombian authorities believe they were wandering through the rainforest since their plane went down in the southern Caqueta region.

The Cessna 206 light aircraft was flying between Araracuara in Amazonas province and San Jose del Guaviare, a city in Guaviare province, when it disappeared in the early hours.

Earlier in the week, soldiers found the wreckage of the aircraft, nose buried in the jungle floor, and the bodies of the three dead.

One of the dead adults, Ranoque Mucutuy, was the mother of the four rescued children. They are thought to be aged between 11 months and 13 years.

The family are from the Huitoto people, an indigenous group in south-eastern Colombia and northern Peru.

Before they were found on Wednesday, the Colombian military said search efforts had been stepped up after a "shelter built in an improvised way with sticks and branches" was found, indicating there were survivors.

In photographs published online, scissors and a hair band had been discovered in the branches on the jungle floor. Earlier a baby bottle and some half-eaten, discarded fruit had also been found by rescuers.

The thick rainforest and extremely isolated location of the crash hampered search efforts, with military planes and helicopters assisting the search teams on the ground.

One helicopter played out a recorded message from their grandmother in the Huitoto language telling the children to stop moving through the rainforest, AFP news agency reports.

Colombian authorities have not yet given the cause of the plane crash but the country's disaster response body said the pilot had reported problems with the engine minutes before the plane disappeared from radar systems.