Arson Probed in Long Beach Blast : Destruction: Gas line was deliberately disconnected, authorities say. Investigators seek to question a resident of building who was hospitalized by the explosion.

A devastating blast that tore through a North Long Beach neighborhood--destroying one building, shattering two blocks of storefront windows and injuring nearly 20 people--was deliberately caused by someone who disconnected a gas line in an apartment building, authorities said Tuesday.

Long Beach fire officials, combing the wreckage of the Atlantic Avenue building leveled by the Monday night blast, said they discovered a detached steel tube leading from a kitchen gas outlet to a stove. The shut-off valve was still on when investigators arrived.

While they did not know what caused the gas to ignite, Long Beach fire investigators were treating the incident as arson. “Clearly, somebody had twisted (the line) off,” said Deputy Fire Chief Anthon L. Beck.

Fire Department arson investigators were focusing their probe on Terry Martin, a 35-year-old unemployed man who lived in the upstairs apartment where the severed gas line was found. Martin suffered second- and third-degree burns over a quarter of his body and was in fair condition Tuesday at County-USC Medical Center.

Seventeen others were injured in the blast, including a 2 1/2-year-old child who required three stitches on her cheek.

The blast damaged 22 buildings, shattering windows for a block on both sides of the two-unit apartment building, which also housed a photography studio. Long Beach officials estimated the cost of the destruction at $1.5 million to $2 million. The force of the explosion could be felt for miles and heard as far away as Carson.

Authorities said they had not ruled out the possibility that someone had caused the explosion as an act of attempted murder, but “we don’t think that’s what happened,” said Fire Investigator Dave Kean.

Dale Aimers, who lived below Martin and emerged from the blast unscathed, suggested that the incident may have been a suicide attempt by Martin, whom Aimers said was out of work and spoke of killing himself just last week. Authorities declined to speculate on the matter and arson investigators were planning to interview Martin in the hospital.

Long Beach Gas Department officials estimated that gas had been flowing into the upstairs unit for at least three minutes before the explosion. They also did not know what caused the gas to ignite. However, “for an explosion of this size, there had to be a considerable amount of gas in the room,” said John L. Williams, the Gas Department’s general manager.

Aimers had just sat down to watch the 6 p.m. “Monday Night Football” telecast when the ceiling over him came crashing down. He crawled through a mountain of rubble, wearing only his underwear and a T-shirt. Aimers, an electrical construction mechanic, suffered only a few bumps on his head.

On Tuesday, he watched as demolition crews tore down what remained of his tiny Atlantic Avenue apartment and recalled the harrowing moments as the floor began to shake and the walls collapsed around him.

“All of a sudden blackness and rumbling,” said a visibly shaken Aimers, 34. “I was breathing pure dust. I looked up and saw the ceiling two feet above my head.”

Some of the injured were in an adjacent grocery store or walking along the street at the time of the blast. One woman was driving by when the explosion sent her car careening into a light pole.

Families who lived in the four-unit apartment building next door to the building occupied by Aimers and Martin spent Monday night at a motel a few doors away, courtesy of the Red Cross. It was unclear when--or if--they would be allowed back into their units, which they fled with only the clothes on their backs.

Several were still shaken Tuesday.

Anthony Jones, 17, was showing visitors from the Red Cross the cuts on his feet.

Like Aimers, Jones was watching the football telecast when the explosion ripped through the ground-floor apartment he shares with his mother, directly across from Aimers’ apartment. He ran into his bedroom, only to find the wrought-iron bars outside his window blown into his room, where they landed on his bed.

“All I saw was black smoke everywhere,” Jones said.

He immediately telephoned his mother. “He called up crying, ‘Mommy, mommy, the house blew up. There was a bomb,’ ” Terri Jones, 55, said.