Building Collapses Los Angeles

In the 25 years since he immigrated from India, Shashikant Jogani quietly built a real estate empire, borrowing to buy apartment buildings no one else wanted, fixing them up, then leveraging them to buy more. Jogani became a rich man, and one of Los Angeles' largest residential landlords. But 30 seconds of shaking on Jan.

First came a surge of panic, the sense that she and others might not survive the collapse of their apartment building. Then there was the frenzied escape through a blind passageway tangled with rubble toward a shard of light, where the force of the shifting structure had ripped a hole in a wall. Once away from danger, once on the sidewalk outside, once she had thanked God for life, a disturbing reality clouded Nelida Tovar's euphoria. "I thought, 'What would become of me and my children?

Three women were hurt when a balcony collapsed during a party early Sunday morning at a Hollywood Hills home, authorities said. More than 15 people were on the balcony when it fell about 10 feet shortly before 12:30 a.m., said Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells. One woman was treated at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for a broken leg. A woman with a broken finger and a third with cuts and bruises were treated at the scene.

Los Angeles police officials said Monday that they are investigating last week's collapse of an aging Echo Park apartment complex as a potential homicide. Juan Francisco Pineda, a 31-year-old father of two, was killed and at least 35 people were injured when the building suddenly shifted and gave way Friday morning.

First came a surge of panic, the sense that she and others might not survive the collapse of their apartment building. Then there was the frenzied escape through a blind passageway tangled with rubble toward a shard of light, where the force of the shifting structure had ripped a hole in a wall. Once away from danger, once on the sidewalk outside, once she had thanked God for life, a disturbing reality clouded Nelida Tovar's euphoria. "I thought, 'What would become of me and my children?

Kay Sawyer's wood-frame house only gave a few squeaks and rattles Wednesday evening before it shifted off its foundation with a huge "booming" sound. Sawyer and several friends visiting in the front yard ran into the street, thinking an earthquake was rattling through the area. But when the noise stopped, Sawyer discovered that her house had dropped three feet and separated from its front steps.

As two floors of concrete tumbled onto him, Salvador Pena recalled Wednesday, his thoughts turned to his family--his five children and his wife, whom he has struggled to support since leaving war-torn El Salvador for Los Angeles a dozen years ago. "I thought that I was going to die, and my family needs me so much," Pena said in his first public comments since his rescue from beneath the rubble of the Northridge Fashion Center's parking structure, which collapsed in Monday's earthquake.

When the Loma Prieta earthquake collapsed a 1 1/2-mile span of freeway in Oakland four years ago, the city's search-and-rescue units were overwhelmed by the disaster and forced to rely on outside assistance. Virtually the same situation occurred during Monday's massive temblor, when Los Angeles firefighters had to call outside units to help pull victims from the rubble of a Northridge apartment building and two other sites.

Just weeks before his death, Howard Lee wrote his own epitaph. "If it weren't for fate, I might be somewhere else," the 14-year-old boy wrote in a nine-page autobiography titled "My Life." That sentence proved as cruelly ironic as anything connected with the merciless Northridge quake, which murdered Howard in his bed, a Golf Digest he had been reading the night before close at hand.

For more than 30 years, the Barrington Building in the 11600 block of West Olympic Boulevard had been a great place to spot celebrities. Edward G. Robinson, Mama Cass and Steve McQueen used to stop by. More recently, Drew Barrymore, Linda Evans and Madonna reportedly made appearances. The reason: Many of Los Angeles' top-flight dentists were housed in the six-story building. And some of the city's most prominent psychiatrists and psychologists, as well. "It's the mental health center of L.A.

Authorities searched for clues Saturday in the collapse of an Echo Park apartment building, as dozens of displaced residents--mostly immigrants from Mexico and Central America and their children--struggled to put their shattered lives back together. "It's Christmas and I'm homeless," said Ana Avila, a mother of three and one of a number of former occupants who went to the site, hoping to retrieve valuables left inside.

Three women were hurt when a balcony collapsed during a party early Sunday morning at a Hollywood Hills home, authorities said. More than 15 people were on the balcony when it fell about 10 feet shortly before 12:30 a.m., said Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells. One woman was treated at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for a broken leg. A woman with a broken finger and a third with cuts and bruises were treated at the scene.

An undisclosed settlement of more than $1 million has been reached in a massive civil lawsuit over the collapse of the Northridge Meadows Apartments, where 16 tenants died in the Jan. 17, 1994, earthquake. The early settlement of the case means a jury will never decide whether the collapse of the three-story, 163-unit apartment building was due to shoddy construction, as the lawsuits contended, or was an act of God, as the owner and builder claimed.

Kay Sawyer's wood-frame house only gave a few squeaks and rattles Wednesday evening before it shifted off its foundation with a huge "booming" sound. Sawyer and several friends visiting in the front yard ran into the street, thinking an earthquake was rattling through the area. But when the noise stopped, Sawyer discovered that her house had dropped three feet and separated from its front steps.

In the 25 years since he immigrated from India, Shashikant Jogani quietly built a real estate empire, borrowing to buy apartment buildings no one else wanted, fixing them up, then leveraging them to buy more. Jogani became a rich man, and one of Los Angeles' largest residential landlords. But 30 seconds of shaking on Jan.

In the 25 years since he immigrated from India, Shashikant Jogani quietly built a real estate empire, borrowing to buy apartment buildings no one else wanted, fixing them up, then leveraging them to buy more. He became a rich man, and one of Los Angeles' largest residential landlords. But 30 seconds of shaking on Jan. 17 brought one of Jogani's jewels--the three-story, 164-unit Northridge Meadows apartment building--groaning to the ground as the first floor collapsed, killing 16 tenants.

Trapped under 20 tons of concrete for seven hours by the deadly quake, Salvador Pena never lost consciousness or faith. He prayed and he asked his rescuers to pray with him. On Tuesday, it appeared that those desperate prayers, similar to prayers uttered all across Los Angeles in the moments and hours after the quake, had been answered. In serious condition at UCLA Medical Center, Pena was alert, even cheerful, although still not out of danger.

Authorities searched for clues Saturday in the collapse of an Echo Park apartment building, as dozens of displaced residents--mostly immigrants from Mexico and Central America and their children--struggled to put their shattered lives back together. "It's Christmas and I'm homeless," said Ana Avila, a mother of three and one of a number of former occupants who went to the site, hoping to retrieve valuables left inside.

Just weeks before his death, Howard Lee wrote his own epitaph. "If it weren't for fate, I might be somewhere else," the 14-year-old boy wrote in a nine-page autobiography titled "My Life." That sentence proved as cruelly ironic as anything connected with the merciless Northridge quake, which murdered Howard in his bed, a Golf Digest he had been reading the night before close at hand.

For more than 30 years, the Barrington Building in the 11600 block of West Olympic Boulevard had been a great place to spot celebrities. Edward G. Robinson, Mama Cass and Steve McQueen used to stop by. More recently, Drew Barrymore, Linda Evans and Madonna reportedly made appearances. The reason: Many of Los Angeles' top-flight dentists were housed in the six-story building. And some of the city's most prominent psychiatrists and psychologists, as well. "It's the mental health center of L.A.