Word: tidal
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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EVERY AUGUST THE EARTH PASSES THROUGH THE orbital path of Comet Swift-Tuttle. If the comet ever happened to be there, the 10-km-wide (6-mile) chunk of ice and rock could slam into the planet, carving an enormous crater, generating tidal waves and throwing up a worldwide pall of dust that could block sunlight for months. Plants would be largely wiped out, and so would many species that ultimately depend on plants for food -- including, perhaps, the human race. Just such a disaster, many scientists believe, killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. A smaller strike...
Probably the most spectacular of the week's calamities began with a major earthquake under the Pacific Ocean 30 miles off the west coast of Nicaragua. The temblor spawned tsunamis, commonly known as tidal waves, that towered as high as 45 ft. in spots and rolled over dozens of small towns along 200 miles of coast. Surging inland, the waves crushed houses and hotels and swept people out to sea. Nicaraguan civil defense officials said 116 were killed and 150 missing...
HURRICANES AS WICKED AS ANdrew are thought to come along perhaps twice a century. Earthquakes shudder on and off, but the big, continent-cracking convulsions tend to space themselves out over generations. Biblical floods are rare, like killer tidal waves, volcanic eruptions and the other cyclical calls to humility in the face of nature's destructive power. But last week it somehow seemed that the clock was running fast: Typhoon Omar menaced Guam, a tornado attacked Wisconsin, fires burned out of control in California, a four- story tidal wave in Nicaragua dissolved whole neighborhoods, and the residents of South Florida...
...chaos in the Balkans carries threats to European security. The tidal wave of refugees driven from Croatia and Bosnia is choking the absorptive capacity of neighboring nations. Since those who have driven away the exiles have no intention of letting them return, a more or less permanent and costly place must be found for several million embittered, possibly disruptive people -- the Palestinians of the 1990s...
...them clearly benefited from the anti-incumbent mood in general -- and Anita Hill's coattails in particular. "We're seeing the shattering of the political glass ceiling for women in California," said University of Southern California election expert Eric Schockman. Moaned defeated Congressman Levine: "I got hit by a tidal wave known as the year of the woman...