China has announced new tariffs of 84% on the US, in a response to Donald Trump’s trade war that will raise fears of further escalation.

The Chinese ministry of finance said it will impose 84% tariffs on US goods from Thursday, up from the 34% previously announced, according to Reuters.

Stock markets sold off further in the wake of the announcement. More details to follow.

China announces 84% tariffs on all US goods in response to Trump’s 104%

Stock markets fall further in UK, Germany, France and Spain as trade war escalates, after China says it will not ‘sit idly by’

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China has announced new tariffs of 84% on imports of all US goods, in a move that sent stock markets falling further and will raise fears of further escalation of Donald Trump’s trade war.

The Chinese ministry of finance said on Wednesday that it would impose 84% tariffs on US goods from Thursday, up from the 34% previously announced.

The decision came hours after new rates on imports to the US from dozens of economies rose further, with tariffs imposed on Chinese products since Trump returned to the White House reaching a staggering 104%.

China’s retaliation sent stock markets – which had already slumped on Wednesday – falling further with major indices down in the UK, Germany, France and Spain. London’s FTSE 100 dropped by 3.5%, Germany’s Dax index fell by 3.8%, France’s Cac 40 slumped by 3.9% and Spain’s Ibex was 3.2% down.

Before the announcement of the 84% tariffs, China’s government said it was unwilling to fight a trade war but “will never sit idly by and watch the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese people be damaged and deprived”.

The global economy has been rocked since sweeping 10% US tariffs took effect over the weekend, prompting dramatic market sell-offs worldwide and sparking recession fears.

The falls in Europe followed another tumultuous day on some Asian markets. Japan’s Nikkei benchmark index closed down almost 4%, while Taiwan’s benchmark stock index was 5.8% lower. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index recouped some earlier falls to close 0.4% down, and South Korea’s Kospi 200 index dropped by 1.8%.

However, China’s stock markets rose, appearing to weather the storm after government interventions. The SSE composite index in Shanghai ended the day 1.1% higher, while the Shenzhen SE composite rose 2.2%.

Oil prices fell for a fifth day in a row on Wednesday, to the lowest level in four years, since February 2021, over concerns that a global trade war would dampen demand and dent economic growth. Brent crude oil futures prices dropped as low as $58.47.

The new US tariffs are tailored to specific countries based on a formula that has been criticised by economists that divides trade in goods deficit by twice the total value of imports.

“President Trump has a spine of steel and he will not break,” the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday. “And America will not break under his leadership.”

US stocks dropped on Tuesday for a fourth straight trading day since Trump’s tariffs announcement last week, with the S&P 500 closing below 5,000 for the first time in almost a year.

China has accused the US of abusing trade levers to suppress China, and of failing to meet obligations under numerous agreements including the phase one trade deal signed during Trump’s first term, and of “systematically escalated economic and other forms of pressure against China”.

Trump believes his policy will revive the lost manufacturing base by forcing companies to relocate to the US. But many business experts and economists question how quickly – if ever – this can take place, warning of higher inflation as the tariffs raise prices.

Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, said the new tariffs were at “maximum” levels, and expressed confidence that negotiations would bring them down.

“I think you are going to see some very large countries with large trade deficits [with the US] come forward very quickly,” he told CNBC, the financial news network, on Tuesday. “If they come to the table with solid proposals, I think we can end up with some good deals.”

The US administration has scheduled talks with South Korea and Japan, two close allies and major trading partners, and the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is due to visit next week.

“These are tailored, highly tailored deals,” Trump said at a White House event. “We’ve had talks with many, many countries, over 70, they all want to come in. Our problem is, can’t see that many that fast.”

Trump’s top trade official, Jamieson Greer, told the Senate that Argentina, Vietnam and Israel were among those who had offered to reduce their tariffs.

Trump originally announced a 34% additional tariff on Chinese goods. However, after China announced its own 34% counter tariff on American products, he vowed to pile on another 50% duty. Counting existing levies imposed in February and March, that would take the cumulative tariff increase for Chinese goods during Trump’s second presidency to 104%.

The new US tariffs imposed on 57 target countries, territories and blocs include rates of 20% on the EU, 26% on India and 49% on Cambodia.

The EU has sought to cool tensions, with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, warning against worsening the trade conflict in a call with the Chinese Premier, Li Qiang.

Von der Leyen stressed stability for the world’s economy, alongside “the need to avoid further escalation”, an EU readout said.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, called on Trump to reconsider, adding if the EU was forced to respond “so be it”.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

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‘We will have to raise prices’: gloom and resolve in Yiwu, on China’s trade war frontline

At the world’s largest wholesale market, vendors have reduced their exposure to the US but fear the repercussions of a global economic shock

If you have ever bought a Christmas decoration, a button, an electric shaver or any other cheap manufactured product, there is a good chance it came from Yiwu, a city in east China’s Zhejiang province that is home to the world’s largest wholesale market.

Covering more than 4m square metres, tens of thousands of suppliers have booths in Yiwu International Trade City. As the US and China exchange increasingly hysterical rhetoric and threaten ever-higher tariffs, it is vendors at places like Yiwu who are at the frontline of the new trade war.

On Monday, US president Donald Trump threatened to impose an additional 50% duty on Chinese goods, which would take the total rate to more than 100%. Few in Yiwu are happy to hear about the new tariffs, but – having faced trade wars since at least 2018 – many are well prepared to focus their business on trade with countries outside the US.

Wang Guiying has been selling wholesale picture frames in Yiwu for 30 years. She says that fewer than 10% of her customers are in the US, a much smaller share than when she first set up shop. These days, most of her buyers are from the Middle East.

“Now business is getting harder,” she says. The margins are very tight, and we’re working with minimal profit. It’s tiring to do business but you can’t stop.” Her few US customers are “slowly reducing their orders”.

Like Wang, Ma Lin, who sells beauty accessories, does most of her trade with the Middle East. She says it is too soon to say what impact of the tariffs would be, but predicts they “will cause a huge loss in trade between China and the US”.

Vendors in Yiwu are more worried about the global economic shock caused by Trump’s tariffs than on US taxes on Chinese goods specifically. Clementine, 23, graduated from university two months ago and joined a perfume exporting business in Yiwu. She says she’s “not optimistic at all” about the economic situation.

“But I think we have no choice. We just have to accept it,” she says. Trump “can do whatever he wants”.

China’s government is keen for its exporters to pivot away from the US. About 15% of China’s exports go to the US, down from 19% in 2017. Many Chinese goods still end up on US shelves via third countries, but the overall push to reduce exposure to the US is evident in official statements as well as the statistics.

Yiwu’s official reporting of its 2024 trade statistics, for example, says the city’s imports and exports last year were worth 669bn yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 18%. The local government noted that 18% of this trade was with Africa, 17% with Latin America and 10% with Asean countries. It made no mention of the US.

“Despite grappling with significant economic headwinds … China enters this trade confrontation with multiple structural advantages that significantly strengthen its hand against the United States,” says Diana Choyleva, founder and chief economist at Enodo Economics, a forecasting firm.

Choyleva notes that if Trump follows through with his threat to slap an extra 50% tariffs on Chinese goods, it would be US consumers who would pay the price. “Simply forcing Trump to implement his threatened 50% tariff may ultimately inflict more self-damage on the American economy than any additional Chinese measures.”

Wall Street traders interviewed by the Guardian say that Trump’s tariffs on third countries are merely bargaining chips to persuade those countries to raise tariffs on China. That is exactly what sellers like Cheng Xiaoyan, who exports novelty ashtrays, worries about.

“If it was just about the US, it would be OK as I don’t have many customers there,” she says. “But I’m worried that other countries will follow the US and impose similar tariffs.”

“We’ll have to raise our prices. As our profit margins are very thin already, they wouldn’t be enough to cover the tariffs. We won’t be able to absorb the cost.”

Cheng says she tries to be optimistic, but “this is something only the government can negotiate. What can ordinary people do?”

Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu

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Dramatic sell-off of US government bonds as tariff war panic deepens

Falling demand suggests loss of financial confidence in US as Donald Trump escalates trade standoff with China

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US government bonds, traditionally seen as one of the world’s safest financial assets, are undergoing a dramatic sell-off as Donald Trump’s escalation of his tariff war with China sends panic through all sectors of the financial markets.

The falls suggest that as Trump’s fresh wave of tariffs on dozens of economies came into force, including 104% levies against Chinese goods, investors are beginning to lose confidence in the US as a cornerstone of the global economy.

The yield – or interest rate – on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond rose by 0.16 percentage points on Wednesday to 4.42%, its highest since late February – and this week has undergone the three biggest intraday moves since Trump was elected in November. Yields move inversely to prices, so surging yields mean falling prices as demand drops.

The move in the 30-year bond was more dramatic. The 30-year yield briefly jumped above 5% to its highest since late 2023 and was last trading at 4.9157%, or 0.2 percentage points higher than Tuesday.

“This is a fire sale of Treasuries,” said Calvin Yeoh, portfolio manager at the hedge fund Blue Edge Advisors. “I haven’t seen moves or volatility of this size since the chaos of the pandemic in 2020,” he told Bloomberg.

Analysts believe the US Federal Reserve may need to step in. Jim Reid, at Deutsche Bank, said: “Markets are pricing a growing probability of an emergency [interest rate] cut, just as we saw during the Covid turmoil and the height of the GFC [global financial crisis] in 2008.”

UK bonds were also under severe pressure after the US moves. The yield on a 30-year UK gilt hit 5.518% on Wednesday morning, up 16 basis points and surpassing a previous 27-year high of 5.472% set in January.

Shorter-dated 10-year gilt yields were slightly higher at 4.69% while two-year yields ticked down at 3.92%.

Higher yields on gilts – UK government bonds – will make things even more difficult for Downing Street, as it will raise the cost of borrowing to fund investment.

China’s intransigence in the face of escalating US tariffs appeared to show the world’s two largest economies heading for a showdown with an outcome that analysts said was difficult to predict.

“When challenged, we will never back down,” said China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian. The commerce ministry said: “China will fight to the end if the US side is bent on going down the wrong path.” Further countermeasures have been promised by Beijing.

It was not clear whether China, which is one of the world’s largest holders of Treasuries, included among its policy changes the sale of those bonds, which would increase the US administration’s financial pain.

Global stock markets are suffering another tumultuous day as the tariffs take effect.

Japan’s Nikkei benchmark index closed down almost 4%, while Taiwan’s benchmark stock index was 5.8% lower. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index recouped some earlier falls to close 0.4% down, and South Korea’s Kospi 200 index dropped by 1.8%.

In Europe, the major markets slumped in the opening trades on Wednesday. In London, the FTSE 100 dropped by 2.2% in early trades on Wednesday, immediately undoing most of the gains on Tuesday. Germany’s Dax index dropped by about 2.3%, while France’s Cac 40 fell by 2.4%. Spain’s Ibex index was down by 2%.

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Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas

Amazon, Google and Microsoft are building datacentres in water-scarce parts of five continents

Amazon, Microsoft and Google are operating datacentres that use vast amounts of water in some of the world’s driest areas and are building many more, an investigation by SourceMaterial and the Guardian has found.

With Donald Trump pledging to support them, the three technology giants are planning hundreds of datacentres in the US and across the globe, with a potentially huge impact on populations already living with water scarcity.

“The question of water is going to become crucial,” said Lorena Jaume-Palasí, founder of the Ethical Tech Society. “Resilience from a resource perspective is going to be very difficult for those communities.”

Efforts by Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, to mitigate its water use have sparked opposition from inside the company, SourceMaterial’s investigation found, with one of its own sustainability experts warning that its plans are “not ethical”.

In response to questions from SourceMaterial and the Guardian, spokespeople for Amazon and Google defended their developments, saying they always take water scarcity into account. Microsoft declined to provide a comment.

Datacentres, vast warehouses containing networked servers used for the remote storage and processing of data, as well as by information technology companies to train AI models such as ChatGPT, use water for cooling. SourceMaterial’s analysis identified 38 active datacentres owned by the big three tech firms in parts of the world already facing water scarcity, as well as 24 more under development.

Datacentres’ locations are often industry secrets. But by using local news reports and industry sources Baxtel and Data Center Map, SourceMaterial compiled a map of 632 datacentres – either active or under development – owned by Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

It shows that those companies’ plans involve a 78% increase in the number of datacentres they own worldwide as cloud computing and AI cause a surge in the world’s demand for storage, with construction planned in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

In parts of the world where water is plentiful, datacentres’ high water usage is less problematic, but in 2023 Microsoft said that 42% of its water came from “areas with water stress”, while Google said 15% of its water consumption was in areas with “high water scarcity”. Amazon did not report a figure.

Now these companies plan to expand their activities in some of the world’s most arid regions, SourceMaterial and the Guardian’s analysis found.

“It’s no coincidence they are building in dry areas,” as datacentres have to be built inland, where low humidity reduces the risk of metal corrosion, while seawater also causes corrosion if used for cooling, Jaume-Palasí said.

‘Your cloud is drying my river’

Amazon’s three proposed new datacentres in the Aragon region of northern Spain – each next to an existing Amazon datacentre – are licensed to use an estimated 755,720 cubic metres of water a year, roughly enough to irrigate 233 hectares (576 acres) of corn, one of the region’s main crops.

In practice, the water usage will be even higher as that figure doesn’t take into account water used to generate the electricity that will power the new installations, said Aaron Wemhoff, an energy efficiency specialist at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

Between them, Amazon’s new datacentres in the Aragon region are predicted to use more electricity than the entire region currently consumes. Meanwhile, Amazon in December asked the regional government for permission to increase water consumption at its three existing datacentres by 48%.

Opponents have accused the company of being undemocratic by trying to rush through its application over the Christmas period. More water is needed because “climate change will lead to an increase in global temperatures and the frequency of extreme weather events, including heat waves”, Amazon wrote in its application.

“They’re using too much water. They’re using too much energy,” said Aurora Gómez of the campaign group Tu Nube Seca Mi Río – Spanish for “Your cloud is drying my river” – which has called for a moratorium on new datacentres in Spain due to water scarcity.

Spain has seen rising numbers of heat-related deaths in extreme weather events linked by scientists to the climate crisis. Last month, Aragon’s government asked for EU aid to tackle its drought.

Farmer Chechu Sánchez said he’s worried the datacentres will use up water he needs for his crops.

“These datacentres use water that comes from northern Aragon, where I am,” he said. “They consume water – where do they take it from? They take it from you, of course.”

With 75% of the country already at risk of desertification, the combination of the climate crisis and datacentre expansion is “bringing Spain to the verge of ecological collapse”, Jaume-Palasí said.

Asked about the decision to approve more datacentres, a spokesperson for the Aragonese government said they wouldn’t compromise the region’s water resources because their impact is “imperceptible”.

Water offsetting

Amazon doesn’t provide overall figures for the water its datacentres use worldwide. But it does claim that it will be “water positive” by 2030, offsetting its consumption by providing water to communities and ecosystems in areas of scarcity elsewhere.

Amazon says it is currently offsetting 41% of its water usage in areas it deems unsustainable. But it’s an approach that has already caused controversy inside the company.

“I raised the issue in all the right places that this is not ethical,” said Nathan Wangusi, a former water sustainability manager at Amazon. “I disagreed quite a lot with that principle coming from a pure sustainability background.”

Microsoft and Google have also pledged to become “water positive” by 2030 through water offsetting, as well as finding ways to use water more efficiently.

Water offsetting can’t work in the same way as carbon offsetting, where a tonne of pollutants removed from the atmosphere can cancel out a tonne emitted elsewhere, said Wemhoff, the Villanova University specialist. Improving access to water in one area does nothing to help the community that has lost access to it far away.

“Carbon is a global problem – water is more localised,” he said.

Amazon should pursue water accessibility projects “because it’s the right thing to do”, not to offset the company’s usage and make claims about being “water positive”, Wangusi said.

In March, Amazon announced that it would use AI to help farmers in Aragon use water more efficiently.

But that is “a deliberate strategy of obfuscation” that distracts from the company’s request to raise water consumption, said Gómez, the campaigner.

Amazon said its approach shouldn’t be described as offsetting because the projects are in communities where the company operates.

“We know that water is a precious resource, and we’re committed to doing our part to help solve this challenge,” said Harry Staight, an Amazon spokesperson. “It’s important to remember many of our facilities do not require the ongoing use of water to cool operations.”

‘Extreme drought’

Amazon is by far the biggest owner of datacentres in the world by dint of its Amazon Web Services cloud division, but Google and Microsoft are catching up.

In the US, which boasts the largest number of datacentres in the world, Google is the most likely to build in dry areas, SourceMaterial’s data shows. It has seven active datacentres in parts of the US facing water scarcity and is building six more.

“We have to be very, very protective around the growth of large water users,” said Jenn Duff, a council member in Mesa, Arizona, a fast-growing datacentre hub. In January, Meta, the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, opened a $1bn datacentre in the city, and Google is developing two more.

The surrounding Maricopa county, where Microsoft also has two active datacentres, is facing “extreme drought”, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In June 2023, Arizona state officials revoked construction permits for some new homes there due to a lack of groundwater.

Drought has not halted Google’s plans for a second Mesa datacentre, while its first centre has a permit to use 5.5m cubic metres of water a year – about the same quantity used by 23,000 ordinary Arizonans.

“Is the increase in tax revenue and the relatively paltry number of jobs worth the water?” said Kathryn Sorensen, an Arizona State University professor and a former director of Mesa’s water department. “It is incumbent on city councils to think very carefully and examine the trade-offs.”

Google said it won’t use the full amount of water in its Mesa permit as it plans to use an air cooling system.

“Cooling systems are a hyperlocal decision – informed by our data-driven strategy called ‘climate-conscious cooling’ that balances the availability of carbon-free energy and responsibly sourced water to minimise climate impact both today and in the future,” said Google spokesperson Chris Mussett.

Stargate

In January at the White House, Trump announced “Project Stargate”, which he called “the largest AI infrastructure project in history”.

Starting in Texas, the $500bn joint venture between OpenAI, the American software company Oracle, Japan-based SoftBank and Emirati investment firm MGX will finance datacentres across the US.

The day before the Stargate announcement, Trump’s inauguration date, the Chinese company DeepSeek launched its own AI model, claiming it had used far less computing power – and therefore less water – than its western rivals.

More recently, Bloomberg has reported that Microsoft is pulling back on some of its plans for new datacentres around the world. Microsoft has also published plans for a “zero water” datacentre, and Google has said it will incorporate air cooling to reduce water use – though it isn’t yet clear how its systems will work

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Jaume-Palasí. “Most datacentres right now are going from air cooling to water cooling because liquid is more efficient when you try to cool down high-density racks, which are the ones that are mostly being used for AI.”

And while the Trump administration has pledged to fast-track new energy projects to power these new datacentres, it has so far said nothing about the water they could use up.

“Neither people nor data can live without water,” said Gómez. “But human life is essential and data isn’t.”

Additional reporting by Eleanor Gunn

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Leaders of the German conservative and socialist parties have reportedly agreed on a coalition deal to form the next government, German media are reporting.

The German press agency dpa said that the leaders of the two parties will take part in a joint press conference 3pm German time (2pm UK) to present the result of their talks.

But the deal would still have to be approved by a vote of the SPD’s 357,000 members, whic is expected to take at least ten days, meaning CDU leader Friedrich Merz is unlikely to be formally confirmed as the next German chancellor before May.

Media speculations suggest the CDU/CSU will take the interior and foreign ministries, taking on the critical job of resolving the country’s migration crisis and finding Germany’s place in the world despite global uncertainty surrounding the new US administration.

Early reports suggest that the SPD, which led the outgoing government of Olaf Scholz, will keep the finance and defence portfolios, leaving the popular defence minister Boris Pistorius in the next cabinet.

This development is very timely as the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, has topped a federal voting intention poll for the first time in history (10:31), exploiting the political limbo amid global uncertainty (10:39).

Tributes to ex-London scientist after body found dismembered in Colombia

Alessandro Coatti described by former colleagues at Royal Society of Biology as ‘passionate and dedicated’

Tributes have been paid to a “passionate and dedicated” scientist after parts of his dismembered body were found in a suitcase in Colombia.

Alessandro Coatti, who worked at the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) in London, was discovered on the outskirts of Santa Marta, a port city on the Caribbean coast. The 42-year-old molecular biologist was travelling and conducting research in South America after working in London for eight years.

The mayor of Santa Marta, Carlos Pinedo Cuello, said a £9,000 reward was being offered for information leading to the capture of those responsible for the death of the Italian national.

In a statement posted on X, Pinedo Cuello said: “This crime will not go unpunished. The criminals must know that crime has no place in Santa Marta. We will pursue them until they are brought to justice.”

Santa Marta, which is surrounded by beaches and mountains, is a gateway to some of Colombia’s most popular tourist destinations, including the village of Minca, the Tayrona national park and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains.

A hotel worker who spoke to the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo said Coatti had inquired about visiting Minca, which is famous for its organic coffee and varied birdlife, and was conducting research on local animal species, the Associated Press reported.

Coatti, who did his master’s degree at University College London, was described as “funny, warm, intelligent” by former colleagues at the RSB, where he worked for eight years first as a science policy officer before being promoted to senior science policy officer. Coatti was among RSB representatives who appeared before parliament in June 2022 to discuss the future regulation of UK genetic technologies.

He left the RSB at the end of 2024 to volunteer in Ecuador and travel in South America.

“He was a passionate and dedicated scientist, leading RSB animal science work, writing numerous submissions, organising events and giving evidence in the House of Commons,” the RSB said in a statement. “Ale was funny, warm, intelligent, loved by everyone he worked with and will be deeply missed by all who knew and worked with him.

“Our thoughts and best wishes go out to his friends and family at this truly awful time.”

Coatti had previously talked about his passion for his work on social media. On LinkedIn, he explained he was “focused specifically on ethical research and innovation topics, particularly in the animal and biomedical fields”.

Discussing his move into policy in a February 2022 interview published on the RSB website, he described being motivated by a longstanding “passion for science” and “a new passion for community building and stakeholder engagement”, adding: “I have discovered I really like the mediation and negotiation part of the role. You have to listen to people with different views and try to understand their thoughts, what their interests are and how you can reach a consensus.”

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Nearly 100 dead in Dominican Republic nightclub roof collapse

Singer Rubby Pérez, who was performing at Jet Set club, and municipal governor among dead in Santo Domingo

Search efforts continued early on Wednesday after nearly 100 people died in a nightclub roof collapse in the Dominican Republic.

The popular Dominican merengue singer Rubby Pérez, who was performing at the Jet Set nightclub before hundreds of people when the collapse occurred shortly after midnight on Tuesday, was one of those killed, according to his manager.

Relatives of clubgoers gathered around the disaster site in the capital, Santo Domingo, as rescuers ferried the injured to hospital and used a crane to remove debris.

“We have some friends here, a niece, a cousin, some friends, who are in the rubble,” said Rodolfo Espinal as he waited for information on his loved ones.

About 370 rescue personnel combed mounds of fallen bricks, steel bars and tin sheets for survivors.

Also among the dead were the former Major League Baseball players Octavio Dotel and Tony Blanco. Dotel, who was 51, was rescued alive but later died of his injuries, local media reported.

Local media said there were between 500 and 1,000 people in the club when the roof collapsed at about 12.44am on Tuesday. The club had capacity for about 1,700 people.

Pérez was on stage when there was a blackout and the roof came crashing down, according to witnesses. Pérez’s daughter Zulinka told reporters she managed to escape after the roof collapsed but he did not.

The Dominican president, Luis Abinader, said the governor of the Monte Cristi municipality, Nelsy Cruz, was also killed. Abinader declared three days of national mourning.

By early Wednesday, the preliminary death toll had reached 98, said Juan Manuel Méndez, the director of the Emergency Operations Center. “No people have been found alive since 3pm,” Méndez said in his latest update.

He said earlier: “As long as there is hope for life, all authorities will be working to recover or rescue these people.”

Iris Peña, who had attended the show, told SIN television how she escaped with her son. “At one point, dirt started falling like dust into the drink on the table,” she said. “A stone fell and cracked the table where we were, and we got out. The impact was so strong, as if it had been a tsunami or an earthquake.”

Dozens of family members flocked to hospitals for news. “We are desperate,” Regina del Rosa, whose sister was at the concert, told SIN. “They are not giving us news, they are not telling us anything.”

Helicopter images revealed a large hole where the club’s roof once was. A crane was helping to lift some of the heavier rubble as men in hard hats dug through the debris. Authorities issued a call for Dominicans to donate blood.

Artists paid tribute to Pérez on social media. “The friend and idol of our genre has left us,” Wilfrido Vargas wrote. The Puerto Rican singer Olga Tañón wrote: “Maestro, what a great pain he leaves us.”

The Instagram page of the Jet Set club says it has been in operation for more than 50 years, with shows every Monday until the early hours. Its last post before Monday’s event invited fans to come and “enjoy his [Pérez’s] greatest hits and dance in the country’s best nightclub”.

On Tuesday, the club issued a statement saying it was working “fully and transparently” with authorities.

The Jet Set roof collapse is one of the biggest tragedies the Caribbean nation has faced in recent years. In 2023, about 40 people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion linked to a plastics company in San Cristóbal, near Santo Domingo. In 2005, more than 130 prisoners in the east of the country died in a fire caused by a fight between inmates.

Tourism generates about 15% of GDP in the country, with millions of annual visitors attracted by its music, nightlife, beaches and the colonial architecture of the capital.

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