Hope is fading for families awaiting word on their loved ones trapped under the rubble after the roof of a Dominican Republic nightclub collapsed earlier this week, as the death toll climbed to 218 Thursday morning.
So far, 189 people were rescued after the roof of the popular Jet Set nightclub in Santo Domingo collapsed Tuesday morning, authorities said in a Thursday morning update.
“We’ve practically combed ground zero, there’s only a little bit left to look at,” Juan Manuel Méndez, director of the country’s Emergency Operations Center, said in a Thursday morning news conference.
He said the victim area would be closed later Thursday, adding, “It’s been very hard for everyone” and expressing solidarity with the affected families.
Méndez added that search and rescue efforts were still underway and in coordination with various state agencies.
The club was once a bustling center for nightlife. The collapse turned the cultural jewel into a wreckage site, with more than 300 firefighters scouring through the rubble and giant cranes removing pieces of the concrete roof.
When the roof caved in, revelers were enjoying a performance by popular merengue singer Rubby Pérez, who was later found dead.
Other identified victims include former MLB players Octavio Dotel and Tony Cabrera, Dominican fashion designer Martín Polanco, employees of Grupo Popular — one of the country’s largest banking companies, and Nelsy Cruz, governor of Montecristi province.
The country’s Emergency Operations Center said Wednesday night that the mission was transitioning from a search and rescue phase to a recovery operation.
“Over the past few days, rescue teams have worked without interruption, removing debris, assisting the injured and recovering people alive,” the agency said in a statement in Spanish. “However, having exhausted all reasonable avenues for finding more survivors, the operation now enters a different, but equally sensitive and crucial, phase: the recovery of human bodies with the due respect and dignity that each victim deserves.”
After the recovery phase, an investigation will begin into the cause of the tragedy.
