Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (AP) – At least 18 people died and more than 120 people were injured after a roof falling into a nightclub in the capital of the Dominican Republic early on Tuesday.
Juan Manuel Mendes, director of the Emergency Operations Center, said the crews were looking for potential survivors in the rubble in a plane in Santo Domingo.
He said: “We assume that many of them are still alive, and for this reason the authorities will not surrender here so that one person does not remain under this rubble.”
Nelsi Cruz, the governor of Montekriti, was among the victims. Meanwhile, from the injured, the singer of MERENGUE RUBBY Pérez, who was performing when the ceiling collapsed, officials said.
His manager, Enrique Bolino, whose blood shirt, told the journalists at the scene that the ceremony had started shortly before midnight, with the ceiling collapsed about an hour later, killing the group’s saxophone.
“It happened quickly. I managed to throw myself in a corner,” he said, adding that he initially thought he was an earthquake.
President Louis Abyader wrote on X that all rescue agencies “work tirelessly” to help the affected.
“We regret the tragedy that took place in a group nightclub.
Abinader arrived at the scene and embraced those looking for friends and family, and some of them with tears flowing on their faces. He did not speak to the correspondents.
An official stood with loudspeakers outside the club calling for the great crowd to search for friends and relatives to give the ambulance space.
“You have to cooperate with the authorities, please,” he said. “We remove people.”
In one of the hospitals where the injured were taken, an official was out of a loud reading of the names of the survivors when a crowd gathered around them and shouted the names of their loved ones.
It was not immediately clearly the cause of the ceiling collapse.