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Consider a 5x5 sliding puzzle with the solved state

 1  2  3  4  5
 6  7  8  9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24   

We can solve the puzzle in three steps. First solve 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, then solve 8,9,10,11,12,16,17,21,22, and finally solve the 8 puzzle in the bottom right corner. Step 1 requires 91 moves:

depth   new             total
0       18              18
1       6               24
2       13              37
3       27              64
4       54              118
5       117             235
6       231             466
7       443             909