Door to hell
July 14th, 2010 Posted in Environment | No Comments »Rich with its natural resources, Turkmenistan often mistaken for Uzbekistan is popular with it’s “Door to Hell”. A hole that continuously burning until today since 1971 throughout these 39 years.
Turkmenistan which is a part of the Soviet Union until 1991. And during the ruling of Soviet Russia, back in 1971 when geologists were conducting a gas drilling in Kara-Kum desert, they discovered an underground chamber nearby the village of Darvaza (better known in Turkmen as Derweze, sometimes also referred to as Darvaz). This discovery was an accidental and had resulted a collapse of drilling rig, thus exposing a giant gas crater filled with poisonous gases emitted to the external world. Concentration of gases from this crater was extremely high therefore nobody dare to go under. Someone came with an idea to light the gas in the crater on fire so as to burn it before the poisonous fumes engulf the nearby town of Darvaza.
The geologists at first thought the idea of burning the gas was smart and went ahead with lighting the crater on fire. But it turns out, the supply of natural gas below the crater is near infinite and which is why it has Continue Reading…
