The gate to hell

Somewhere in the middle (slightly to the west) of Turkmenistan there is a hole. What gave this hole such a tourist magnet name is not the size, although at 60 meters in diameter is no pothole, but an engineering accident. Also, in close vicinity is a small village called Derweze, which means "the gate". What is known is that in 1971 a team of soviet geologists while drilling in the desert of Karakum found a cave filled with natural gas which they unwillingly managed to collapse. There is no information about any victims in this accident. After the collapse, the geologists were faced with a big problem because all that gas was now being released into the atmosphere. Now comes the "fun" part, one of the team members maybe wanted to smoke some Belomorkanal and that is when he realized they can fix the problem by burning the problem.

After 30+ years they are still waiting for the problem to fix itself apparently.

[With this I launch a new section of the blog entitled simply "various", a collection of impressive or strange things or events. I was planning to name it 'what the fuck' but some people found it inappropriate to use the word fuck, so "various" it is]
[I don't know who is the owner of the photos]