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LOS ANGELES — A 77-year-old Echo Park apartment building partially collapsed Friday, killing a man and causing minor injuries to 36 other people. 

At least several dozen people, many of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America, were left homeless when the wood and stucco building in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods gave way. An apartment building next door was evacuated also. 

Structural failure of the 24-unit building was suspected, although reports of a possible explosion were not ruled out, Fire Chief William Bamattre said. Cracks in the building’s foundation had been repaired just last year, a city Building and Safety Department spokesman said. 

The dead man was trapped between floors in what may have been a stairwell. 

“I heard this rumbling that crescendoed into an explosion. Then I heard women screaming,” said Tom Panages, 48, who lives nearby and rushed outside thinking there might have been a car accident. 

“I opened the door and lo and behold the building had collapsed in on itself. Tenants were streaming out of the bottom windows,” he said. 

Firefighters were initially told that up to three people might be trapped but all residents were eventually accounted for and a search of all but the most heavily damaged units and the basement turned up just a small dog, which was rescued. 

Twenty-five people were treated for injuries at the scene and another 11 were taken to hospitals, Capt. Steve Ruda said. 

Damage was heaviest at the front, where second-story units fell onto the ground floor. One side of the building leaned on a next-door apartment building and the opposite side had extensive exterior damage, with slabs of stucco fallen away. 

Forty-four adults and 33 children from both buildings were given shelter at a church. 

Property owner Nicholas DeLuca of TransCon Properties said the collapse was “devastating.” 

“We need to find out if it was an act of earth movement or something else,” he said in a telephone interview from Tucson, Ariz. 

A code enforcement team had noticed cracks in the building foundation during an inspection of the area in 1998, said Bob Steinbach, spokesman for the city Department of Building and Safety. 

The agency ordered the building’s owner to repair the cracks and the city attorney’s office followed up in May 1999 by holding a hearing with the owner, Steinbach said.  

The owner agreed to have an engineer perform an evaluation of the structure and to obtain a work permit. 

The Building Safety Department issued that permit in July 1999 and work on the apartment complex, which was built in 1923, was finished in April and approved by the department, Steinbach said. 

Garry Pinney, general manager of the city Housing Department, said apartment buildings are inspected about every three years. 

The city’s inspection program has been mired in the courts since shortly after an anti-slum ordinance was approved in 1998. The ordinance imposed an annual $12 inspection fee per unit against owners of rental properties and the revenues were to be spent on administering and enforcing an anti-slum program. 

Shortly after the program was implemented, the Apartment Association of Los Angeles Inc. and other property owner groups filed suit.  

The 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles said the program violated Proposition 218, which was adopted in 1996 to prevent local governments from creating and imposing taxes without taxpayer approval.  

Under terms of the proposition, affected property owners must be notified of the fee and given a chance to vote it down, the appeals court ruled. 

The California Supreme Court is now considering whether the fees actually fall under Proposition 218. A ruling on the case is expected next month. 

The collapse was reported just before 8:30 a.m. Thirty-three people inside at the time managed to escape, authorities said. 

Passersby helped people get out amid chaos until firefighters arrived, he said. 

Luis Hernandez, 16, said he was in his downstairs apartment with his brother, Roberto, when a woman knocked on the door and told him the building was falling.  

He said he didn’t believe her and was about to shut the door when his brother told him to leave it open.  

A moment later the ceiling came down around them, he said, and they had to make their way out of the rubble. Hernandez said he saw the man who was killed and recognized him as a resident. 

The building stood across the street from landmark Echo Park Lake, a favorite Los Angeles postcard setting for decades, just northwest of downtown. 

“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. It’s a sad day for Echo Park.”