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Adelma Tapia Ruiz, a Peruvian woman who had lived in Brussels for almost nine years, was traveling with her twin 3-year-old daughters, Maureen and Alondra, to visit her mother in New York when two bombs exploded at Brussels Airport on Tuesday.

Ms. Tapia, 36, was killed, making her one of the first known victims of the assaults, which killed at least 30 people.

Maureen had shrapnel wounds in one arm, while Alondra was not injured. Ms. Tapia’s husband, Christopher Delcambe, who was seeing his family off at the airport, was also injured during the explosion, and he and Maureen were hospitalized.

“We danced together at an event for Women’s Day just recently,” said Lady Sindey Jouany, a friend of Ms. Tapia’s who lives in Paris. “She was a very active woman. I’m still in shock. At first I thought it was someone else, and it took time to understand how this could have happened to her and how close to home it has hit.”

Fernando Tapia Coral, Ms. Tapia’s older brother, confirmed his sister’s death in a post on Facebook.

“It’s very complicated to describe this pain that we’re feeling at home, but as an older brother I know that I have to do it,” Mr. Tapia wrote. “But even more incomprehensible is not being able to be close to her. And this tragedy today touched the doors of my family this morning in the Brussels airport when my sister Adelma Tapia died in the terrorist attack and was not able to survive this jihadist attack that we’ll never understand.”

In an interview, Mr. Tapia said: “The girls had been playing, and Christopher followed them out of the gate area when the explosion occurred suddenly. Christopher couldn’t find Adelma.”

Ms. Tapia had three sisters and two brothers. “They are in shock and can’t even talk,” Mr. Tapia said. “We are from Pucallpa, and everyone here is also in shock.”

He added that one of his sisters was trying to fly to Belgium to help identify the body.

“Adelma was a chef and had studied marketing; she wanted to set up a Peruvian restaurant in Brussels,” Mr. Tapia said.

Ms. Tapia’s Facebook page is filled with photographs of her and her children. In one post she wrote about participating in a Peruvian food festival sponsored by the Peruvian consul general in Brussels.

An earlier version of this blog post misstated the condition of Ms. Tapia’s husband, Christopher Delcambe. He was injured in the attack; he was not unharmed.

An earlier version of this blog post misidentified the city in Peru from which the Tapia family comes. It is Pucallpa, not Iquitos.