Word: airtight
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Sealed Lid. There was nothing to be done. For hours after the blast, smoke made it impossible for rescue teams to search the silo. The explosion had cut off the power, making it impossible to open the 700-ton steel and concrete lid that seals the silo airtight. As flames devoured what little oxygen there was, several men tried to crawl into air-conditioning ducts. The elevator was stalled for lack of power, and the only way up was a single ladder. Trapped workmen piled onto it in panic, and two wedged themselves hopelessly together in one narrow section...
...chief Soviet space designer, a mysterious figure who is never identified, described his ship sketchily. To get out into space, he said, Leonov used an air lock, a chamber with airtight doors at both ends. When he crawled into it, Comrade Belyayev sealed the inner door tight, and Leonov presumably tested his space suit to see that it was working properly; then he cautiously loosened the outer door. Though it must have been rehearsed on earth over and over again, this was surely a moment of hideous crisis...
...battlefield casualty often cry out for the most advanced skills of modern medicine. But the battlefield surgeon has always worked against forbidding odds. Aseptic surgery is practically impossible in a tent operating room of the sort that has gone almost unchanged for 100 years. The canvas is far from airtight, and temperature control is so bad that an infusion bottle might freeze and shatter in mid-operation. The lab work that is essential in today's medicine and surgery is usually out of the question...
...neatly, edge to edge, on clear ground, then hooked them to an air hose. Solemnly, the big bags shook out their wrinkles as they were inflated and rose into the familiar, half-round shape of a Quonset hut. The four sections were joined together and the joints zippered airtight. Out of the other packages came 20 beds and all the gear needed for as many patients. Only eight men were needed...
...Japanese history. Disguised as a meter reader, one plotter entered and cased the princess' house. The gang moved in for the snatch three times, only to have something go awry. Before they could make a fourth try, the police were tipped off and collared the gang, building an airtight case with full confessions. Yet last spring the accused were convicted only of trespassing and illegal possession of weapons. They got mild sentences of eight months to three years...