‘GATES OF HELL’ MAY FINALLY BE CLOSED
The leader of Turkmenistan would like to finally close the ‘Gates of Hell’ that have burned continuously in the nation’s Karakum Desert for five decades. On an appearance on Turkmenistan’s state TV channel, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov urged officials to “find a solution to extinguish the fire,” citing concerns for the health of people living near the flaming crater, as well as lost business opportunities.
The Gates of Hell, also known by the far-less-apocalyptic name of the Darvaza gas crater, are a large hole in the desert measuring roughly 70 metres wide and at least 20 metres deep. Excavation of the hole began in 1971 during a Soviet drilling operation to extract gas – Turkmenistan being an ex-soviet nation. Disaster struck when the ground beneath the drill rig collapsed and it plunged into a natural gas cavern. As noxious methane gas leaked into the air, geologists decided to set the crater on fire, estimating that the gas within would only burn for a few weeks.
But 50 years later, the Gates of Hell still blaze, and they’ve even become one of Turkmenistan’s top tourist destinations. Turkmenistan sits atop the fourth-largest known reserve of natural gas in the world, and the country’s economy is largely dependent on gas exports. President Berdymukhamedov previously ordered experts to quell the Gates of Hell in 2010, though those efforts were unsuccessful.