Did you know that the Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan (also known as the Door to Hell or the Gates of Hell) has been burning since the 1980s?

The Darvaza gas crater, officially known as the Shining of Karakum, is a burning natural gas field that collapsed into a cavern near Darvaza in Turkmenistan, a country in Central Asia bordered by the Caspian Sea and largely covered by the Karakum Desert.

The floor and rim of the Darvaza gas crater are illumined by hundreds of natural gas fires. The crater has been burning since the 1980s. How the crater formed is unknown, but engineers ignited the crater to prevent poisonous gases from spreading.

Historically, the early years of the crater's history are uncertain as relevant records are either absent from the archives, classified, or inaccessible. Some local geologists have claimed that the collapse into a crater happened in the 1960s; it was set on fire only in the 1980s to prevent emission of poisonous gases.

Yet, others assert that the site was drilled by Soviet engineers in 1971 as an oil field but collapsed within days, forming the crater, with the engineers choosing to flare the crater to prevent emission of poisonous gases but underestimating the volume of the gas.

In April 2010, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow recommended that measures be taken to limit the crater's influence on the development of other natural gas fields in the area. In January 2022, Berdimuhamedow announced plans to extinguish the crater, citing deleterious effects on local health, the environment, and the natural gas industry.

A commission was established to find the optimum technique. But despite Berdimuhamedow's intentions, the crater remains open. However, in post-Soviet Turkmenistan, the crater has become a minor tourist attraction, perhaps aided to an extent by the declaration of the region as a natural reserve in 2013.

A crude road without signage runs out to the crater, and yurts have been set up nearby. In 2013, George Kourounis became the first person to set foot at the bottom of the crater; he was gathering soil samples for the Extreme Microbiome Project. The descent was sponsored by National Geographic and featured in an episode of the National Geographic Channel series Die Trying.

Kourounis used a custom-made Kevlar harness attached to multiple Technora ropes attached to a full-body aluminized suit with a self-contained breathing apparatus. He has since wished to descend into the crater again, carrying more equipment for better profiling of the local biome.

In 2018, the gas crater was used as an overnight stop in the Amul-Hazar automobile rally. In 2019, Berdimuhamedow appeared on state television doing doughnut stunts around the crater to disprove rumors of his death.

Source: Wikipedia

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