Free Republic

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...

President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov wants to extinguish the flames of the “Gates of Hell” – a gas crater that has been blazing for decades. The site, also called “Door to Hell,” is located in the middle of the desert about 160 miles north of the capital, Ashgabat, and has become an attraction for the country’s few visitors. The hellish hole, which measures 190 feet wide and 70 feet deep, was formed in 1971 following a Soviet Union gas drilling collapse, according to Turkmen news site Turkmenportal.

This ominous hole in Earth’s surface has been burning since 1971. Dubbed the Door to Hell, it sits above natural gas deposits in the Karakum Desert near Derweze, Turkmenistan. The hole is 230 feet wide and 66 feet deep and has been boiling continuously since Soviet geologists first ignited it while drilling for gas.

Locals call it the Door to Hell, a giant burning pit that has spit out angry flames for more than 40 years, casting a yellow-orange glow into the evening sky. "It takes your breath away," said visitor Gozel Yazkulieva, 34, from the Turkmenistan capital Ashgabat. "You immediately think of your sins and feel like praying."