Why has a hole in Turkmenistan been on fire for decades?
The short answer
A crater full of natural gas collapsed in the desert decades ago. Someone set it alight to burn the gas off, and it simply never ran out.In the middle of Turkmenistan's Karakum Desert there's a pit about 70 metres wide and 30 metres deep that has been burning for as long as most people can remember. Locals and tourists call it the Door to Hell. On maps it's the Darvaza gas crater.
How did it start?
The popular story says Soviet engineers were drilling for gas in 1971 when the ground gave way and swallowed their rig. Worried about poisonous methane drifting toward nearby villages, they lit it, expecting it to burn out in a few weeks.
The truth is murkier. Some Turkmen geologists say the collapse happened in the 1960s and the fire only started in the 1980s, and no official records of either event have been published. What everyone agrees on is that gas keeps seeping up through the rock, so the flames keep going.
Wait, what?
In 2013 an explorer climbed down into the burning crater wearing a heat suit and found bacteria living on the floor.
Is it ever going out?
Turkmenistan's government has talked about putting it out several times, mostly because it wastes gas the country could sell. In 2022 the president ordered officials to find a way, and by 2025 officials reported the flames were far smaller after new wells were drilled nearby to draw the gas off. One of Central Asia's strangest sights may not be around much longer.
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Watch on YouTubeSources: National Geographic (George Kourounis's 2013 expedition); Reuters and AP reporting on Turkmenistan's plans to extinguish the crater, 2022–2025.