Guadalajara Gas Blasts Kill 100 : Mexico: A daylong series of explosions thunders under the city, leveling houses and ripping open streets. Four hundred are injured, and the death toll may rise.

A chain of underground gas explosions ripped a trail of chaos through this city’s downtown Wednesday, demolishing dozens of blocks of houses and leaving at least 100 people dead and 400 injured.

The explosions, which began in the morning and continued into the night, tore through more than 20 blocks, blowing automobiles onto rooftops and breaking apart paved streets, turning them into sunken rivers of mud littered with overturned cars and trucks. Houses were reduced to twisted metal and piles of broken concrete.

The federal government sent in the army to keep order. Hundreds of rescue workers, many wearing masks against lingering gas fumes, climbed over fallen walls and huge chunks of rubble searching for victims.

Guillermo Cosio Vidaurri, governor of Jalisco state, which includes Guadalajara, ordered temporary housing set up for the homeless at the state university and two sports stadiums. Makeshift morgues were set up in gymnasiums and hospitals. The federal government sent in dogs trained to find people trapped in rubble.

The Red Cross reported at least 1,000 buildings damaged and sent out an appeal for blood and blood plasma. Red Cross spokesman Alejandro Olguin Gonzalez put the number of dead at 100 or more, and he expected the count to rise.

“There is still a lot of rubble that hadn’t been moved,” Olguin said over the din of sirens and tractors that were knocking down remnants of walls and power poles.

Journalists in the area where the dead were being taken said they counted 184 bodies before they were forced out of the area by police, according to the Associated Press.

Gonzalez Cervantes was at home watching television when the first blasts occurred around 10:30 a.m.

“There was a huge boom. I came outside, and there were cars on roofs and clouds of dust everywhere,” Cervantes said. “People were crying. They were hysterical. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

There were conflicting reports as to the source of the gas. Pemex, Mexico’s state oil monopoly, said the explosions were caused by highly volatile liquid hexane that leaked from a private cooking oil factory into the sewage system. The hexane is used to extract edible oil from seeds, Pemex said. The city’s fire chief said the explosions were caused by gasoline, but Pemex said it has no pipelines in the area. Hexane smells like kerosene.

Red Cross and city officials at the scene said the cause was under investigation.

Fruit stand owner Salvador Aguila Lopez, 23, told the Associated Press that he had just come from the market and was unloading a truck in front of his house. He heard a rumble, grabbed his boy and threw him into the house, he said.

Before he blacked out, Aguila Lopez said, “the street rose up and cars flew up. Then when it all settled, one car that was across the street was on top of a mound of rubble that was a house on the other side.”

Aguila Lopez said there had been a baby inside the car. The car landed on the mound of rubble and the baby on the roof of another house near it. The baby was alive, he said.

“It must have been a miracle,” he said.

The mother of the baby was found in the beauty shop, across the street, half-buried by rubble, said Luis Alberto Ruvalcaba, a neighbor. She was alive, too, Ruvalcaba said, “probably with broken legs.”

Shouting over wailing sirens, rescue helicopters and generators pumping ditch water, Jose Luis Macias, a city water engineer, said the city had received reports of gas leaks on Tuesday afternoon, but the area was not evacuated.

Around him on hard-hit Gante Avenue, in the center of the damaged area, were half-crumbled buildings and second-story doors dangling over missing rooms. In one damaged building pictures hung on a free-standing wall that once was part of a bedroom.

Several miles surrounding the explosion site were evacuated as residents there were left without electricity, water or telephone services. Police and army patrols barricaded all major arteries leading into the area, backing up traffic for miles.

Sewer caps were opened throughout the city, allowing the gas to escape and filling the streets with the odor.

The power of the explosions--at least 15, by one count--pulled up entire blocks of asphalt, leaving 15-foot trenches and open rivers of sewage. Trees were uprooted; shoes and clothing were strewn about collapsed houses.

Frantic residents arrived home to look for family members, joining scores of civilians clad in masks digging away rubble. Nurses and doctors waited near ambulances to aid the injured.

Alberto Pulido, 28, was driving a blue Dodge down Violeta Street when he heard a huge blast and the street opened up around him.

“I was saved by the grace of God,” Pulido said, pointing to he wreckage of a semitrailer truck that overturned on his Dodge. “I thought a car had hit me from behind and then I saw the earth was opening up and my car was sinking. I prayed to God. I thought I was going to die.”

One resident, Maria Rojas, 42, said she had been smelling gas for three days but had heard no news of any serious trouble.

Maria Elena Gizel, said her three sisters lived in the area of destruction and she had not been able to find them.

“Where do we go? We don’t know what to do,” she said, panic in her voice.

Local radio announcements urged residents to refrain from using telephones or water and called for help for the homeless. Local hospitals assembled lists of the victims, taping names to their walls.

Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, with 3 million people, has a large community of U.S. retirees.

In Los Angeles, Mexican Consul General Jose Pescador spoke by telephone with Gov. Vidaurri of Jalisco state about three hours after the explosions began.

Vidaurri described the location as in the southeastern part of the city known as Sector Reforma. The center, he said, was near Calzada Independencia and Calzada Gonzalez Gallo in a poor and middle-class residential neighborhood.

Telephone lines into Guadalajara were jammed throughout the day Thursday, virtually knocking out communications to the area, said AT&T; spokesman Holly Echols. Phone company officials were investigating the extent of equipment damage and urged concerned Californians to refrain from using phone lines and to wait to hear from loved ones.

Hundreds of residents in Los Angeles--home to an estimated 400,000 people from Jalisco--called the local consul seeking information.

Pescador said consular officials were trying to make contact with ham radio operators in Mexico for more information and also trying to obtain the names of the dead.

Times staff writer Stephanie Chavez in Los Angeles contributed to this article.