Word: abersten
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...charge of the detonation attempt, the first of its kind in Italy, was Rolf Lennart Abersten, 46, a Swedish engineer who has worked in Milan as an explosives specialist for the past eleven years. The temperature of lava sometimes reaches some 1800° F; to prevent the heat from setting off the charges, Abersten and his associates devised an ingenious protective system. It called for installation of four rows of steel tubes in the west side of the old lava wall (lava from the eruption was moving along the wall's east side). Each of the metal tubes contained...
Unfortunately, before the explosives were ready for detonation, the flowing lava slopped over the wall and temporarily clogged some of the tubes; that added a great deal of new weight to the wall, as well as considerable heat. Abersten could not use the bottom row of explosives because they had become too hot, despite their protective coverings. The total force of the charges dropped from...
...those trying to conquer its fireworks: it released a poisonous cloud that swept workers from its slopes, showered gray ash on the nearby town of Giarre and sent a new river of lava toward the Rifugio di Sapienza, a tourist shelter it had damaged earlier in the spring. Engineer Abersten, weary but unbowed, warned that another precision blast would be required to make the diversion an unqualified success. Said he: "I don't want to be defeated by Etna...
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