A catastrophic roof collapse at an iconic nightclub in the Dominican Republic’s capital, Santo Domingo, has left at least 66 people dead including a provincial governor and former Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher Octavio Dotel.
At least 160 other people were injured and some 400 emergency crews were still working to pull survivors from the rubble as families of the victims gathered at the site searching for their loved ones, authorities said on Tuesday.
Juan Manuel Mendez, head of the Dominican Republic’s emergency operations centre, said that efforts to rescue those trapped under the debris were continuing, though the exact number of people inside the Jet Set nightclub at the time of the collapse remained unclear.
Local media reported there were between 500 and 1,000 people in the club when disaster struck in the early hours of Tuesday.
The roof collapse happened during a concert attended by politicians, athletes and other prominent figures.
Among the victims was Nelsy Cruz, governor of the northern Monte Cristi province, President Luis Abinader said. Cruz is the sister of former baseball player Nelson Cruz, a seven-time MLB All-Star.
Former MLB pitcher Dotel died en route to a local hospital after being pulled from the debris, a spokesman for the nation’s Ministry of Sports said.
The Dominican Republic’s Professional Baseball League expressed “its sorrow over the death of former pitcher Octavio Dotel” and concluded: “Peace to his soul”.
Dotel, 51, debuted for the New York Mets in 1999 and played until 2013 for more than a dozen teams including the Houston Astros, Oakland A’s, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers.
“Thinking about our people in the Dominican Republic,” Carlos Mendoza, manager of the Mets, said in a press conference. “We have a lot of the Dominican community in the baseball world.”
Nearly 150 people have been taken to local hospitals for treatment, according to the government.
The cause of the roof collapse remains under investigation.
‘Save lives’
Iris Pena, a woman who had attended the concert, told the Dominican channel SIN how she escaped with her son.
“At one point, dirt started falling like dust into the drink on the table. I asked the security officers … whether the ground had shaken,” she said.
“A stone fell and cracked the table where we were, and we got out,” Pena recounted. “The impact was so strong, as if it had been a tsunami or an earthquake.”
Dozens of family members flocked to hospitals for news.
“We are desperate,” Regina del Rosa, whose sister was at the concert, told SIN. “They are not giving us news; they are not telling us anything.”
At the scene, meanwhile, helicopter images revealed a large hole where the club’s roof once was. A construction crane was helping to lift some of the heavier rubble as men in hard hats dug through the debris.
The authorities have issued a call for Dominicans to donate blood.
“We are rescuing all the people we can save alive and recovering those bodies we find along the way. But we have focused on people we can rescue alive because we hear them asking for help,” Mendez said.
“The main objective is to save lives,” President Abinader said as he arrived at the scene.
The Instagram page of the Jet Set club said it has been in operation for more than 50 years, with shows every Monday until the early hours.
On Tuesday, the club issued a statement saying it had “collaborated fully and transparently with the authorities to help the victims and clarify what happened”.
The Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, received more than 11 million visitors in 2024, according to its Ministry of Tourism.
Tourism generates about 15 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), with visitors attracted by the country’s Caribbean beaches, music and nightlife, as well as the colonial architecture of Santo Domingo.
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