Subscribe by EmailDarvaza: A Gate to Hell on Earth
September 29, 2008 by Kiltak |Once upon a time, sometime in the early 70’s, a bunch of geologists were working in the Karakum desert, right in the middle of mother Russia. So while digging a hole for God knows what reason, they stumbled on a huge natural gas deposit, and afraid that the substance might poison the air of the region, they had the brilliant idea of setting it on fire. The result? Check it out below.
Located near the small town of Darvaza, Turkmenistan, and named by the locals as “The Door To Hell”, this man-made hole has been burning non-stop for the past 35 years. No one really knows how many tons of gas has been burned up to now and how much of it remains, but the whole thing looks like it could keep on going for another century.
Want to see more? Here are two videos I discovered on Youtube and Dailymotion showing the crater in all its burning glory. Enjoy!
[Via Vlog (French)]
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lolz, stupid Russians, they could have been rich!!
But I do admit, that flaming pit does look cool
How wasteful.
Yeah, just imagine if they could harvest all that gas up… But originally, in the 70’s, I think that the “gas pocket” was simply too big, and the team that were digging simply didn’t have the equipment required to “syphon” it up…
So they decided to throw a match in there because they couldn’t patch it up right away… that’s my guess anyways.
Interesting that “Global Warming” started around the same time they fired this up. Maybe this was a secret government plot to stall the forth coming
Global Cooling predicted in the 70s. Or maybe not.
Can they just not put it out and then use the gas?