The roof of the Dominican nightclub that collapsed on concertgoers, killing 232 people, had been leaking for years, the club’s owner told local media Wednesday.
In an interview with the Dominican Republic’s Telesistema channel, the owner of the Jet Set nightclub said water intrusion had been a consistent issue, and that the roof was “never” inspected by the authorities.
“In the building there were always leaks. When we bought it at the end of the 1980s (and) there were already leaks,” Antonio Espaillat said of his club, a lynchpin of nightlife in the capital Santo Domingo for half a century.
The roof of the venue came crashing down in the early hours of April 8 on hundreds of people attending a concert by merengue star Rubby Perez, in the Caribbean nation’s worst disaster in decades.
Perez, 69, was among the victims, along with two retired Major League Baseball players and a provincial governor.
Aerial images of the disaster site showed large air conditioning units sitting atop the rubble.
Espaillat said water leaking from the air conditioning system constantly caused ceiling panels to buckle and need replacing.
“The gypsum planks absorb all the water. The gypsum gets heavy and falls,” he said, adding that the panels had been changed hours before the collapse.
The cause of the disaster is still under investigation.
Building experts have suggested that the roof collapsed under excess weight and have also pointed a finger at poor oversight by the authorities.
Espaillat’s sister and mother were pulled alive from the rubble.
“If this could have been avoided…I would have tried to avoid it,” he said, adding that the building had never been inspected for structural soundness.
The Dominican Republic has no law requiring privately-owned buildings to undergo safety inspections.
After the disaster President Luis Abinader said the government was drafting a bill making inspections mandatory.
The families of at least three victims of the disaster have filed a criminal complaint against Espaillat accusing him of manslaughter.
The relatives of at least one of the victims, Virgilio Cruz, have also said they will sue the state and Santo Domingo city hall for failing to ensure that a venue open to the public met safety standards.
