SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic: The death toll after a roof collapsed at a crowded nightclub in the Dominican Republic has climbed to 218, the head of rescue operations said Thursday.

Rescuers have worked frantically since the collapse in the early hours of Tuesday to dig out survivors from the rubble of the Jet Set club in Santo Domingo, the Caribbean nation’s worst disaster in decades. “Unfortunately and with regret, (there are) 218 people dead as preliminary data,” Juan Manuel Mendez, director of the Emergency Operations Center (COE), told reporters.

He said that 189 people had been “rescued alive” since the collapse. Some 500-1,000 people had been inside the club at the time of the accident, local media had reported. Among the dead were famed merengue singer Rubby Perez, who was performing on stage as the roof caved in, as well as two former Major League Baseball players and a local politician. Helicopter images showed a gaping hole in the roof of the structure in the nation’s capital.

“Our rescue workers are already concluding the search,” Mendez said. “We are saddened by this tragedy that has so saddened the Dominican people.” Authorities ruled out the possibility of finding any more survivors late Wednesday. The government said it will open an inquiry into the disaster as soon as the rescue operations have been completed.

“Today we will complete the rescue effort,” said Jose Luis Frometa Herasme, head of the fire service in the Dominican capital Santo Domingo, where the tragedy occurred at the Jet Set nightclub in the early hours of Tuesday, sending shockwaves through the nation. Relatives of missing people were still waiting desperately for news Wednesday of their loved ones outside the ruined club, at hospitals and at the local morgue. 

Over 300 rescue workers, aided by sniffer dogs, had spent two days combing through mounds of fallen bricks, steel bars and tin sheets, supported by firefighters from Puerto Rico.

Aerial images of the site showed a scene resembling the aftermath of an earthquake, with a gaping hole where the roof of the club—a fixture of Santo Domingo’s nightlife for half a century—had been. – AFP