The Door to Hell

This place in Uzbekistan is called by locals

"The Door to Hell".

It is situated near the small town of Darvaz.

The story of this place lasts already for 35 years.

Once the geologists were drilling for gas.

Then suddenly during the drilling

they have found an underground cavern,

it was so big that all the drilling site

with all the equipment and camps

got deep deep under the ground.

None dared to go down there because

the cavern was filled with gas.

So they ignited it so that no poisonous gas

could come out of the hole, and since then,

it's burning, already for 35 years

without any pause.

Nobody knows how many tons

of excellent gas has been burned

for all those years but it just seems

to be infinite there.

The Door to Hell, as local residents at the

nearby town of Darvaza have dubbed it,

is a 70 meter wide crater in Turkmenistan

that has been burning continuously for 35 years.

In 1971, geologists drilling for gas deposits

uncovered a huge underground cavern,

which caused the ground over it to collapse,

taking down all their equipment and

their camp with it.

Since the cavern was filled poisonous gas,

they dared not go down

to retrieve their equipment,

and to prevent the gas

escaping they ignited it,

hoping it would burn itself out

in a couple of days.

Unfortunately, there was

a slight miscalculation as to the amount of gas

that was trapped,

and the crater continues to burn

to this day.