The stench of decay was almost unbearable. Flies buzzed everywhere. Large black letters denoting a time and "DB"--for dead body--were spray-painted on crumbling stucco walls.

The fractured walls and floors of the Northridge Meadows apartment complex reveal alleged "construction defects" that may have contributed to the building’s collapse during the Jan. 17 earthquake, according to a consultant who says he has reviewed the original building plans.

Santa Monica attorney Joel B. Castro knows that paper shredding isn’t the only way to destroy evidence. So this specialist in construction law obtained a temporary restraining order to prevent the owners of Northridge Meadows from tearing down the buildings.

The judge, who ultimately must decide whether this disaster was an act of God or man, or some combination of the two, was but the latest of thousands of people who have been drawn to the collapsed building.

The Impending demolition of the Northridge Meadows apartments has struck dread into the hearts of seasoned lawyers who have never before conducted such a review of evidence.

The dissection of the Northridge Meadows apartments began Monday with a press conference in which lawyers from all sides differed sharply over basic facts in the wrongful death case.

A judge ordered Friday the "controlled demolition" of Northridge Meadows apartment complex, which partially collapsed during the Jan. 17 earthquake killing 16 people.

The owner of the Northridge Meadows apartments, where 16 people died in the Jan. 17 earthquake, has asked a judge to keep secret the results of a private investigation into how and why the building collapsed.

For almost a month, they chain-sawed and crow-barred their way into the flattened walls of the Northridge Meadows Apartments, where 16 people died in the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake.

The last of a series of building code revisions based on the 1994 Northridge earthquake is expected to pass this month, making Los Angeles, already considered among the world's most quake-prepared cities, even more so.

Joel Bracamonte Castro is sprawled on a lawn chair, wearing jeans, a multi-pocket fishing vest, a metal helmet and a camera around his neck.

Within a day of the Northridge earthquake, Santa Monica attorney Joel B. Castro's phone was ringing.

At 4:31 in the morning on January 17, 1994, the earth's crust snapped 11.4 miles beneath the community of Northridge in Los Angeles. An immense slab of rock began to thrust upward along an unknown buried fault, shifting the San Fernando Valley eight inches and releasing a surge of energy approaching in power the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

The whine of chain saws in the early morning fog Monday marked the start of an autopsy on Northridge Meadows, where 16 tenants died in the Jan. 17 earthquake.

Attorneys representing families suing over the collapse of Northridge Meadows complex said they will examine an apartment complex next door that was built by the same architect and contractor, but survived the earthquake.

The Steeplechase case had been in court nearly two years when the Northridge earthquake left dozens of families from the Calabasas condominiums homeless.

Condominium owners in Santa Rosa had a number of serious complaints about the construction of their 160-unit complex. Shear walls didn't have the proper strength. Parts of the foundation didn't have anchor bolts.

Earthquakes don't frighten Superior Court Judge William A. MacLaughlin.