The desert in Turkmenistan has a hole 328 ft. wide
that has been on fire, continuously, for 38 years.
In 1971, a Soviet drilling rig accidentally punched
into a massive underground natural gas cavern, causing
the ground to collapse and the entire drilling rig to
fall in. Poisonous fumes began leaking from the hole.
To head off a potential deadly catastrophe, the
Soviets set the hole aflame.
The following report is from a couple of travelers who
visited the site. They are shown below, standing in front
of the pit. As I say, the internet sources for these
pictures and information did not give their names, but
that won't be necessary for you to use them as beacons
and remote view the location.
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"Locals say that someone was drilling for natural gas
in the desert when the drill hit an air pocket and the
friction of the metal piping exploding at massive speed
out of a rock hole caused a spark to ignite the reserve
of natural gas, setting it eternally alite.
"Today the crater is 60 meters across and easily 50
meters deep at its furthest point. The flames burst
out of the crater fueled by the natural gas, but to
the casual eye it looks as if the rock and sand are
simply emitting an enormous amount of heat and flame.
At one point there was a thick cable circling the
crater to keep curious travelers at a safe distance,
but the heat of the eternal flame managed to snap the
cable, melting sections of it into piles of ruble,
while other sections have become fused into the landscape.
"For roughly a kilometer in every direction the earth
is grey and lifeless, inhabited only by beetles,
spiders and perhaps a wandering lizard. A strange
coral reef looking rock sticks up from the grey sand
in stalactite-like formations. All attempts to identify
the rock online proved futile, though I’m no geologist.
The remnants of a now unidentifiable machine rest all
around the perimeter, and as I circled the area I found
lizards and other creatures warming themselves on the
hot metallic surfaces of various engine parts presumably
belonging to the unfortunate drilling device that started
the whole saga.
"Oh…My….God! The wildlife around the dead ring of sand
becomes more intense and is reminiscent of the creatures
in Storm Troopers. Walking out to the crater at night
with nothing but a flashlight and, naturally, a giant
flaming crater to indicate the way, I managed to hit
an angle with the flashlight just right so that in the
distance I saw two tiny green gem-like lights glistening
in the distance in the sand. I walked over to investigate
and leaned in really close. The two gems turned out to
be the curious blinking eyes of a spider the size of a
golf ball, with his eight hairy legs extending out
from there like so many reasons to run and hide. I
slowly backed away and shined the light at the same
angle across the landscape. All around me pairs of
little green lights blinked like lightening bugs and
panic rose in my whole body as my arms, thinking on
their own, attempted to fly me out of there. I ended
up with two flashlights, one scanning the distance
for green gems to avoid, the other aimed at my toes
so that if one came near my I could scream my farewells
as my heart stopped.
We decided to camp out at the crater. Obviously this
decision was made before I knew an army of giant spiders
inhabited the warm sands around the crater. We set up
our tent, started a fire of our own, and cooked a simple
meal while drinking beer from the cooler. (We are Americans,
after all, why not tail-gate the gates of hell?) In
the distance, the crater raged seemingly out of control,
the flames licking the sky as if to snap the stars right
out and gobble them up. We danced around our own little
fire to the tuns from the portable iPod, and listened
to Mike play the guitar with the fire from the crater
cracking the percussion in the distance.
Morning came slowly as the sounds of the desert kept
me wondering and imaging what was happening outside the
tent. We boiled water in the morning for coffee and were
on the road again by 9am. Twelve kilometers from the
natural gas crater lies a crater of greater depth but
lesser width that is filled with water. The water emits
bubbles, indicating heat, but there is little information
on the spring, or why the crater is so deep (at least
70 meters). All attempts to find a boiling miniature
mud crater in the vicinity were in vain.
Despite the giant man-eating spiders (that get bigger
each time I tell this story, naturally) and the bubbling
water that could cook you alive, or the crater of fire
that form the gates of hell, I still find Darvaza one
of the nicest and most interesting natural wonder I’ve
ever had the pleasure of enjoying.
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