100 Left Homeless After Apartment Blast : Explosion: Woman tried to kill herself by opening gas jets, authorities say. She is in extremely critical condition with burns; others suffer minor injuries.

An apparent suicide gone wrong triggered a massive explosion at a Lakewood apartment building Sunday, leaving one woman very severely burned and as many as 100 people homeless.

Remarkably, no one else was seriously injured.

The blast--caused by a buildup of gas in one apartment--blew out several walls and shattered windows throughout the 24-unit Lakewood Manor on Pixie Avenue. Two apartments in the two-building courtyard complex were destroyed and the remaining 22 were rendered uninhabitable.

“It just sounded like a war zone,” said Carolyn Neubauer, who said the windows and doors were blown out of the apartment she shares with her husband, Sean. “The glass was tinkling down and everything was falling.”

Ron Weber, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, said detectives believe that a tenant in the building attempted to kill herself by inhaling gas. The 30-year-old woman, whose name was not released, turned up gas jets in her apartment Saturday night, he said, and went to bed.

At about 5 a.m., the gas ignited.

“I thought it was an earthquake,” said Sean Neubauer. “I looked out and saw that the whole wall was shattered.”

The tenant in whose apartment the explosion originated was moaning and covered with burns, Neubauer said. A woman who lived directly above on the second floor was trapped--her door had jammed in the explosion--and the outside corner of her apartment swayed above the air because two walls below had been blown away.

She was screaming, “Get me out! Get me out!” said Carolyn Neubauer. Sean Neubauer ran up the tottering stairs and kicked the door in, allowing the upstairs neighbor to escape.

The burned woman managed to walk out of her apartment with the assistance of another neighbor, Neubauer said.

“She was completely nude and covered with burns,” he said.

The woman was in extremely critical condition Sunday evening, with second- and third-degree burns over 95% of her body, in the burn unit of Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Adelaida Cerda said.

Some tenants sustained minor cuts and bruises from falling debris and were treated by paramedics at the complex, Weber said.

Immediately after the blast, tenants rushed from the site, many carrying valuables and other possessions.

Many spent the morning at a shelter set up by the Red Cross in a nearby bowling alley.

By Sunday afternoon, some were trickling back.

“I lost my glasses,” one woman said, and was let in by deputies. She and other tenants who had returned picked their way among the remains of walls and windows.

Automobiles that had been parked behind the building before the explosion, including one Sean Neubauer bought last month, were covered by debris.

The building owners, CMI Management Co., would not comment about the explosion.

Weber said the blast is estimated to have caused as much as $500,000 in damages. He said CMI told deputies that the company planned to refund tenants’ security deposits and find them apartments in other buildings the firm owns or manages.