Santo domingo—The death toll in a nightclub roof collapse in the Dominican Republic rose to 226 on Saturday (Sunday Manila time), as authorities said they had returned all victims’ bodies to their loved ones.
The disaster claimed the lives of 221 people inside the Jet Set club early Tuesday and four more have died in hospital, Health Minister Victor Atallah told reporters.
A Costa Rican citizen died Saturday, the health ministry later announced, raising the toll to 226 —although Atallah had warned other badly burned victims were still struggling for their lives in hospitals.
The disaster at the club, the Caribbean nation’s worst tragedy in decades, unfolded as several hundred people gathered to see merengue singer Rubby Perez.
The 69-year-old died at the scene and was given a sendoff Thursday at the National Theater attended by President Luis Abinader and the singer’s daughter Zulinka, who had escaped the calamity alive.
The roof collapse’s toll surpasses that of the 136 inmates who died in a 2005 prison fire in the eastern city of Higuey.
The president’s office had earlier said 189 people were pulled alive from the rubble of the nightclub, now reduced to mounds of twisted metal and brick.
Aerial images of the site showed a scene resembling the aftermath of an earthquake.
Several dozen people attended an improvised vigil near the nightclub Friday night.
“A painted flower for each angel up above,” read the message on a makeshift altar. “May their rest be eternal… This great injustice must be explained.”