None Trapped In LA Collapse

A ramshackle two-story Los Angeles apartment building collapsed on Friday, killing one middle-aged man and injuring about a dozen others, firefighters said.

The foundations of the building in the Echo Park area north of Downtown gave way at 8:20 a.m. PST, plunging the two floors into the basement.

A total of 33 people were evacuated and 11 were taken to the hospital with mostly minor injuries. After a painstaking two-hour search among rubble, firefighters said they did not believe anyone was trapped inside.

Investigators suspected that the aging 24-unit building suffered a structural failure.

One witness reported hearing an explosion shortly beforehand and others said crews may have been working on natural gas lines in the area.

The man killed was found trapped between floors in what may have been a stairwell, said Chief William Bamattre of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Damage was heaviest at the front of the building, where second-story units collapsed onto the ground floor.

"I heard this rumbling that crescendoed into an explosion. Then I heard women screaming," said Tom Panages, 48, who lives nearby.

He went outside and saw the damage. "Tenants were streaming out of the bottom windows," he said.

Passersby helped people get out before firefighters arrived, he said.
The stucco building faces Echo Park Lake in one of the city's oldest neighborhoods, just northwest of downtown and west of Dodger Stadium.

"There's all kinds of tenants in there day and night," Panages said. "There's dogs barking and music playing. It's a real vibrant, lively place. For this to happen to these people is as sad as it gets."

Tenants in the low-income apartments said the building, built in 1924, was badly maintained and had been damaged during the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Xochitl Hernandez, 17, who shared an apartment with her parents and two siblings, said the stairway was still twisted from the 1994 quake.

"My mom just finished painting the living room yesterday and she already noticed cracks and went to the manager and complained," she told reporters.

Hernandez said her 13-year-old brother was on the stairway on Friday morning when he heard the building creaking and ran to tell his parents. A television fell on his mother and his father suffered chest pains. Both were hospitalized.