The Door to Hell: Darvasa
Sometimes I learn things from FAILBlog other than the numerous ways that people can do stupid things that result in painful injury to their junk. Case in point: they recently mentioned the long-running hazard known quaintly as “The Door to Hell,” located in Darvasa, Ahal Province, Turkmenistan.
(The name fits. Via Wikipedia.)
Lying in the midst of the Karakum Desert near the small village Darvasa, the doorway was inadvertently opened in 1971 by Soviet geologists. The geologists discovered a large deposit of natural gas at the site, and began exploratory drilling to assess the quality of the find. Soon after work began, however, the ground collapsed under the drilling rig and camp, creating a crater some 230 feet wide and 66 feet deep; fortunately nobody was killed in the accident.
The collapse made the site unsuitable for gas extraction, as it was now freely seeping from the ground. Because the quiet release of natural gas could be a deadly hazard to the people of the region, the geologists decided to burn it off. They set the hole on fire, expecting it to burn itself out of fuel in a few days.
Now, some 42 years later, it is still burning.
The Daily Mail had an article on The Door to Hell in 2010 which is worth looking at due to the pictures and video; it is hard to appreciate, even with the photo above, how massive this fiery hole is.
In 2010, the President of Turkmenistan ordered that the hole be closed so that it doesn’t cause problems with other natural gas sites to be developed in the region. No action has been taken so far, however, leaving Hell’s Gate inconveniently open for the time being.
(A 2010 photograph of The Door by Tormod Sandtorv, via Wikimedia Commons.)
