Of a nightclub roof collapse.

Officials say that 218 bodies.

Have now been recovered from the Jet Set Club in Santa Domingo.

The roof came down in the early hours of Tuesday during a concert by a well-known Merengue singer, Ruby Perez.

It is the Caribbean country's worst disaster in decades.

Well, we can cross over to speak to Will Grant, who's in Santa Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.

And a really difficult day there, Will.

Yeah, it really has been a difficult few days.

Uh, and now the authorities are essentially, um, bowing to the inevitable with this situation, it has moved officially from a search and rescue operation seeking, uh, survivors to officially, um, a recovery operation of the victims bodies.

Uh, in that sense, that reflects the fact that 218 people, um, are known to have died in the collapse of the nightclub behind me, the Jet Set nightclub, um, just hugely shocking, as you said in your introduction.

Now, the worst.

Such accident in Dominican history, and the family members who are here waiting for that news, unfortunately, have now received that tragic news or indeed identified the bodies of their relatives in a sort of makeshift, uh, morgue.

There's just to one side of the building.

And Will, when it comes to the the venue itself, is is there an understanding of how this happened?

Well, that is what the question will be now that this has moved into the recovery phase.

I think the questions are going to ramp up onto exactly why this took place.

How it happened.

Um, a lot of fingers.

Of blame are being pointed at a fire that took place here in 2023.

Um, the question being, of course, were the proper repairs carried out at the time, were was too much weight placed onto a vulnerable roof.

Uh, was the entire building structurally compromised and not made safe.

Um, the owner of the nightclub, uh, has flown into the Dominican Republic.

From the United States was, uh, living to continue his to comply with the authorities.

He says that he and his team, uh, management team have been completely transparent with the investigations and intend to remain so.

But of course, extremely tough questions.

Will Grant, as always, thank you very much.

Will Grant there in Santa Domingo.

The uh capital of the Dominican Republic.

Thank you.