Disaster in the Dominican Republic: 184 people died when the roof of a nightclub collapsed.

BarcelonaEarly Wednesday morning, the roof of a nightclub in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, collapsed while the venue was in full swing. The Emergency Operations Center (COE) has so far recorded the death toll of 184 people, while approximately 500 are injured.

The collapse occurred during a performance by Rubby Pérez, a locally famous merengue singer who had attracted a large crowd at the Jet Set nightclub, one of the country's main nightclubs. According to several local media outlets, there were between 500 and 1,000 people in the club at the time of the collapse.

This Thursday, the government admitted that "all reasonable possibilities of finding more survivors" have been exhausted. Rescue teams will continue searching for bodies in the rubble.

Dominican authorities have confirmed the death of the 69-year-old Dominican artist known as "the loudest voice of merengue." The victims also include former US Major League players Octavio Dotel and Tony Blanco, as well as several executives of the important Dominican Republic company Grupo Popular, and some of their relatives.

The governor of the province of Monte Cristi, Nelsy Milagros Cruz Martínez, who also died in the collapse, had time to alert the country's president, Luis Abinader, of the tragedy just before her death, according to local media reports. The country's leader has decreed three days of official mourning.

Rescue operations are complex, considering the different materials used in the nightclub, the large number of hard-to-reach areas, and the fact that more people are expected to be rescued alive.

A large number of state institutions have responded to the scene of the accident. The President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, along with various government ministers, also attended. In a press conference at the scene, the president offered his condolences to the families of the victims.

Latin music artists such as Bad Bunny, Marc Anthony, Alejandro Sanz, and Natti Natasha have also expressed their condolences for the tragic event and expressed their solidarity with the families of the victims.

This is the most serious accident in nightclubs and dance halls in the world since January 2013, when 242 people died in a venue in Brazil, most of them students, and more than 600 were injured.