Jet Set nightclub roof collapse

On 8 April 2025, the roof of the Jet Set nightclub in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic collapsed during a live performance by merengue musician Rubby Pérez. The structural failure occurred at approximately 12:44 a.m. AST, resulting in 236 fatalities and more than 180 injuries. There were approximately 515 people in the club at the time of the collapse.

It is one of the deadliest non-natural disasters in the country's history.

Background

The building was opened as a movie theater in 1973. It was converted into a nightclub in 1994, and underwent renovations in 2010 and 2015. Featuring two-story high ceilings over an expansive, open plan dance floor, it was able to host a thousand standing and 700 seated visitors. The building was equipped with large air conditioners and water tanks on the rooftop as well as large stage lighting and loudspeakers in the ceiling.

In 2023, the generator room located north of the stage on the west side of the building caught fire after being struck by lightning, but was deemed structurally safe by firefighters. After the collapse, civil engineers and architects who reviewed the damages noted that the roof was inadequately supported by narrow columns on the sides and none in the center. The roof could have collapsed under its own weight due to the heavy machinery it was supporting. The club's owner, Antonio Espaillat, said that new plasterboard had been installed in the roof hours before the collapse, while waterproofing was done on the roof a month before the collapse.

The Jet Set nightclub played live dance music on Monday nights, which attracted well-known people. At the time of the collapse, the nightclub was hosting a concert by merengue musician Rubby Pérez, with hundreds of spectators.