March 29, 2008: Door to Hell

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 then, it’s burning, already for 35 years without any pause. Nobody knows how many tons of excellent gas has been burned for all those years but it just seems to be infinite there.

Looks like the worlds biggest BBQ pit to me.


More pictures and a video here.

I see bar -b -que written all over this......Let the recipes follow:headshake

Maybe a nice temp to roast up some little birdies and marshmallows.

Anyone got a long enough stick?

WOW

I love IoTD.

Looks more like molten lava.

Reminds me of Centralia, Pennsylvania.

That was interesting, thanks, Yellowbolt. Now I feel the need to go there! :lol:

monster;442687 wrote:

That was interesting, thanks, Yellowbolt. Now I feel the need to go there! :lol:

Gee, me too, with a side trip to love canal.:rolleyes:

Closer to home, I just found out that a contractor for the former GE Aerospace factory had been dumping industrial waste just upsream from our reservoir from 1966 to 1973. Cleanup begins here in May.

monster;442687 wrote:

That was interesting, thanks, Yellowbolt. Now I feel the need to go there! :lol:

I've been thru there a bunch of times, its pretty cool. Well, hot actually... Before they closed the road and knocked all the houses down it was extra surreal... Huge areas of dead timber and smoking ground, the occasional furnace-like vent.
One time we went thru they were having a parade, with fire trucks and everything. Pretty ironic really...

Back to Uzbekistan, it seems if we could put out Saddam's oil field fires during Gulf One, that this could be brought under control. Unlike Centralia, this is right out in the open. It would help reduce global warming and might allow reclamation of the gas.

Karenv;442773 wrote:

....[closing the hole] would help reduce global warming ... and allow reclamation of the gas

So would everyone doubling up on the baked beans and skipping the grilling altogether this 4th of July. :right:

Cool pic Bruce.

It is very well named. Much of the orgional imagery for hell came from a place called Gehnna were they burned trash. This Gehnna Jesus said was like Hell with never ending fire and worms that will not die.

It’s actually called 'Darvaza', and it is in Turkmenistan, not Uzbekistan. It’s situated in the middle of the Kara Kum desert, about 6 miles north of Darvaza.
40°15'7.36"N 58°26'22.84"E

YellowBolt;442478 wrote:

Reminds me of Centralia, Pennsylvania.

I assume this was the inspiration for Silent Hill?

xoxoxoBruce;442408 wrote:

Looks like the worlds biggest BBQ pit to me.

It is a BBQ pit... [COLOR="White"] . . .[/COLOR]for [COLOR="White"]. [/COLOR][SIZE="3"]HUMAN SOULS.[/SIZE]

That would be a site to see. Never knew it existed. Thanks!

Kolbenfresser;442975 wrote:

It’s actually called 'Darvaza', and it is in Turkmenistan, not Uzbekistan. It’s situated in the middle of the Kara Kum desert, about 6 miles north of Darvaza.
40°15'7.36"N 58°26'22.84"E

Found it. Thanks.

Funny - when I saw the pinpoint numbers I copied and prepared to GoogleEarth them, which is what I assume you were doing also. Remarkable. Though I feel a twinge of guilt for peering through the Google lens to the site. It is as if I'm making it even hotter with my gigantic magnifying glass.

Hey thanks, Kolbenfresser. :thumb:
Better info is always appreciated.

I don't get it.

They were drilling for gas.
They found gas.
They lit gas on FIRE???

What am I missing?

While they were drilling, the ground collapsed, swallowing the equipment and the camp. They couldn't recover anything because the hole was full of gas. They lit it to keep the gas from leaking out and killing people, then wrote it off and walked away.





Oh, and the Devil won't let them put it out.