1.   Moans, the wordless cries of the sick and dying, came at him out of the pitch blackness of the hospital ward.

2.   Ralph Lettieri, a firefighter, spent hours on his boat in the pitch blackness.

3.   Suddenly, the train enters a tunnel, and the compartment is thrown into pitch blackness.

4.   Survivors told about emerging, after the winds died down, into sheets of rain and pitch blackness that echoed with screams and cries for help.

5.   The hostages spent Tuesday holed up in a house in the jungle, then were herded out in pitch blackness and ordered to cross a road.

6.   A damage assessment in December revealed that Afghans determined to reach the north of their country were braving the tunnel and clambering through it in pitch blackness.