Image caption Mr Morales posted a series of messages saying he was looking for his daughter, Sarah

They had been apart for a decade, but in the end all it took to reunite a homeless father and his daughter was a few 140-character messages on the social networking site, Twitter.

Daniel Morales, 58, was taking part in a New York project in which homeless people are given a prepaid mobile phone to keep a record of their lives.

He had been updating his 3,000-odd followers with regular Twitter updates.

Three weeks into the scheme, he decided to use it to track down his daughter.

"Hi thi is to let yo people know that in lookin eoq my daughter her name is sarah m rivera," he tweeted on Thursday.

He followed the message up with others posting his mobile number and a photo of his daughter, Sarah, 27.

She called him the next day, and the overjoyed pair were reunited in New York on Friday.

"This is an awesome moment," Mr Morales told CNN. "I am rejoicing."

The two had lost touch after Sarah left their Puerto Rico home to live with her mother in California, Mr Morales said.

He had since moved to Harlem, where he had lost his job and then his home in 2010. He has since been living at a shelter.

The project in which he was taking part, Unheard in New York, aims to giving followers a glimpse of what it it is like to be homeless.

The reunion gave Mr Morales the opportunity to meet his two grandchildren - Navaeh Cuff, four, and Akai Carranza, one - for the first time.

After he successfully found his daughter, Mr Morales, whose Twitter handle is @putodanny, tweeted: "@to my pdople: God bless u my brother.putoda6y here,to thank you once againg for helping me find my baby."