Word: swath
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fueled a raging fire in the graphite, which burns like coal when ignited, throwing a plume of volatile radioactive elements into the air. U.S. officials calculated that the particulates and gases surged nearly a mile high, where they were caught by prevailing winds and then blown over a wide swath to the northwest...
...force in an avalanche of devastation. A shear of heavy clay and loosened limestone outcroppings tore through the flimsy homes, crushing many like so much matchwood and trapping their occupants. "I cannot explain how we are alive," recounted Julio Maldonado, who with his wife and six children escaped the swath of the slide. "First the entrance wall fell off, and then the other walls fell off. And then we were sliding down, sandwiched between the floor and the ceiling...
...East Beirut, where a single Christian militia maintains a surprising degree of control, life seems relatively calm. But in Muslim-controlled West Beirut -- across the barricaded "green line," a swath of no-man's-land that divides the city between east and west -- gunmen from various Shi'ite and Sunni factions rule the streets. Neighborhoods in this area, where the American hostages are presumably being held, often change hands from week to week in the endless fighting among factions...
...stepped out of an office building to confront a tornado roaring down the street. "Oh, God, please help me," she gasped. As she ducked in a doorway, the blast blew out the windows and tore off the roof. But she was unhurt. The twister cut a 200-ft.-wide swath through 3 1/2 miles of the town, killing at least eight. "There's nothing standing," said Niles Resident Betty Pompo. "Everything is completely wiped out. The people are walking around in circles...
...into the merely silly. The foursome fare much better disguised as dancing Cossacks, taking their roles a little less seriously. Thomas Derrah stuffs King Ferdinand's shirt full enough to make his vow seem like an everyday stunt. Jones, as the Princess, is unable to cut as distinctive a swath, and of her attendants, only Laurie Gallucio appears as a likely candidate for love at first sight...