I’ll allow it
Mexico, Central America, Cuba correspondent
Report from Santo Domingogetty Images
Maquisopenha has been at Jetset Nightclub every Monday for the past 30 years.
Excited to see a concert by popular Dominican singer Rubby Pérez this week, he took his wife and sister. Now, all three are buried under the collapsed disco tile rub after the roof fell into a cave midway through the performance, leaving at least 184 dead.
“I have never heard the news about any of them,” says Shailyn Peña, Makisho’s 17-year-old daughter, as she sits on the wall outside the devastated venue.
“It was just another Monday night for them. In fact, my dad invited my mother to come too, but at the last moment she decided not to go. It was a blessing of disguise.”
Shailyn Peña is among those waiting for news about her missing loved one
Behind her as she speaks, a team of rescuers meticulously passes through the tiled blew through the building, hearing the slightest sounds of the survivors below it. They are joined by Israeli and Mexican search teams to use sophisticated heat-seeking equipment to find people who are still alive.
Shylin says her cousin is one of the rescuers and sifts through the shards for her own uncle.
But uncertainty and infinite waiting for information have become unbearable, Shailin says.
“I just feel the urge to go there and push all the rocks aside and pull him out. But unless I really can, I really can’t. I just have to sit here and wait for it.”
Shailin Peña
Shailyn Peña filmed with her father Mácingo
Authorities are doing what they can to keep the public informed, providing strict updates on the number of deaths. Regularly, teams appear from sites carrying bodies covered in stretcher blankets.
Sometimes, almost rarely now, someone comes to life and reinforces the hopes of relatives. Emergency Services claim that survivors can still reach the wreckage.
“Nothing can be ruled out,” said Juan Manuel Mendes, director of the Emergency Business Center. “We’re going to give this sort of closure to the families of those who have been caught up in the disaster, over every inch of the tile rub.”
Lewis Abinader, president of the Dominican Republic, declared three days of national mourning.
Among those confirmed to have died in the accident were famous national figures, including Perez himself, two beloved former baseball players, Octavio Dotel and Tony Blanco, and the local governor. And alongside them, many meringue music lovers and Perez fans also died in the collapse.
Getty Images
Over 300 rescuers spent two days through the tile rub looking for survivors
As long as there is a chance of success, the agency’s focus remains on search and rescue operations. But ultimately, the question turns into a cause of collapse, and government investigators will soon need to provide meaningful answers to their families.
One theory is already circulating outside the venue. Many people point to the fingers of fire flames in a nightclub two years ago. Some people fear that flames will structurally weaken the site or that repairs performed are inadequate or not up to the code.
The owner of Jet Set’s nightclub Antonio Espirat has delivered a video message via social media expressing his sadness and expressing “all Jet Set families” to the victim’s parents.
He also claimed that he and his team were working together “fully and transparently with the authorities” over the disaster.
Shailyn Peña has heard about the fire at a nightclub and is among those who think it plays a role. But for now she has more concerns. Despite the efforts of the family to protect them, her young step-sister learns that her father and mother are trapped under the tile rub by other children at school.
They are “terrifying,” she added.
It’s Shailin’s birthday on Thursday. She is usually a day to celebrate with her father, stepmother and aunt.
Instead, she has to endure it in the worst cases. We are waiting for news of her missing loved one.
