Hearing the word hell, of course, everyone will imagine a terrible place, filled with very hot flames and burning embers. And this tourist spot in Turkmenistan, which is called the Gates of Hell, seems to fit that description.
Darvaza Crater, also known as the Gates of Hell, is a giant hole with a diameter of 69 meters, a depth of up to 30 meters, and is filled with burning fire, spreading extraordinary heat.
Karakum Desert |
Darvaza Crater is located not far from the village of Derwese or Darvaza, in the middle of the Karakum desert, Ahal province, Turkmenistan.
The cause of the formation of the Darvaza Crater is not known for certain. Reportedly, this hole was formed as a result of a drilling process carried out by a number of engineers from the Soviet Union in 1971, to determine the amount of oil content in the area. The soil at that location suddenly collapsed during drilling, forming a large and deep hole.
The formation of this large hole raises a new problem, the release of the natural gas content in it. The released natural gas contains a number of hazardous compounds, especially large amounts of methane.
Methane gas is odorless and non-toxic, however, it can cause a person to lack oxygen. This is certainly dangerous for living things, especially humans. What's more, methane gas is highly flammable and explosive on contact with air.
Worried that the gas would be dangerous, the experts then burned the gas content in the crater, so it would not spread to nearby settlements. They hope, the gas will burn out after some time. It turns out that the gas content in Darvaza Crater has not been used up until now, even though it has been burning for decades.
However, geologists think otherwise. According to them, the crater had been forming since the 1960s, and still didn't burn until the 1980s.
I don't know which one is right. What is clear, the existence of Darvaza Crater has become a famous tourist attraction visited by many tourists who are curious to see what this hole called the Gate of Hell looks like.
Karakum Desert, Turkmenistan |
In 2013, the government of Turkmenistan announced that the Darvaza Crater was included in the Karakum Desert nature reserve area.