Door to Hell

The Door to Hell is a real place; it's in Turkmenistan. The name isn't literal, of course, but one look at this giant, burning desert crater of flames.
The Door to Hell is a real place. It's not located on your ex-boyfriend's apartment building; it's in Turkmenistan. The name isn't literal, of course, but one look at this giant, burning desert crater of flames.
in the early '70s when Turkmenistan was part of the Soviet Union, some Soviet geologists trekked out into the Karakum in search of oil. They started drilling, and that's when things went south. Unbeknownst to them, the team and their equipment were sitting atop a huge underground pocket of natural gas. The weight crumbled the desert surface, opening up a few craters that expelled all that flammable vapor.To deal with the gas spewing out of the Earth, the geologists implemented an idea that is not uncommon for the job, but sounds a little wild: they lit that stuff on fire.The hope was that all the escaped natural gas would burn up in a few weeks. It didn't. Fast forward more than 40 years* item