The Day The Dancing Stops (Ozone Disco Tragedy)

After 18 years, the Ozone Disco is again in headlines. The Sandiganbayan 5th Division just convicted seven former officials of the Quezon City engineer's office and two private individuals  of graft in connection with the deadly fire at the Ozone Disco Club on March 19, 1996, 

They get 6 to 10 years of jail terms.

What? Just 6 to 10 years?

It happened just before the clock strikes 12AM, so most of the 350 people inside the disco were celebrating the closing of classes and maybe their graduation.

According to eyewitnesses, the fire started  in the disc jockey booth. They saw sparks fly... something might have short-circuited, we don't know. Most of the worst nightclub and disco fires always starts that way - just look at that 2013 Kiss Nightclub fire in Brazil and the infamous 1942 Coconut Grove fire in the USA.

Anyway, the fire was so fast that it had already spread in the whole disco within minutes.

When firefighters arrived on the scene, they were shocked at the sight: most of those who died in the fire (there were 162 deaths) were killed because they were crushed while trying to exit the Ozone Disco. They were all bottled-neck in the fire exit door of the disco and the people at the back keep on pushing those in the front till everyone was crushed by their own weight. It was later learned that the fire exit door of the disco house is not a "swing-in/swing-out door" type. Instead of providing an exit, it became a death trap.

The victims died in the prime of their life. Most are just teenagers.

Today, what remains of the Ozone Disco is just another of those derelicts that we see here in Metro Manila, but the victims are still seeking justice. 

Some say that you can hear music and voices  through the walls of the  abandoned building. Someone or something are still partying inside the ruins. Some even say that you can still feel the presence, something dark and brooding, when you pass the abandoned structure.

I don't know, the news about the Sandigan Bayan's conviction of those 9 individuals, well,  I just hope that the victims of this tragedy will have their peace.