"Gate to Hell" is to be closed: Burning crater popular with travelers

Created: 01/10/2022Updated: 01/10/2022, 4:28 PM

From: Tobias Utz

An attraction in the desert should be closed forever: The "Gate to Hell", a permanently burning crater, attracts thousands of onlookers every year.

Derweze - In the middle of the Karakum desert there is a tourist magnet that has been for more than five decades.

This is a crater around 70 meters in diameter that is permanently on fire.

The natural spectacle is repeatedly referred to as the “gateway to hell”.

Now it should be closed or deleted.

That is the will of Turkmenistan's ruler Gurbanguli Berdimuchamedow.

Gases rising from the crater are harmful to the environment and the local population.

Turkmenistan is also wasting resources from which "considerable profits" could be made, Berdimuchamedow said on state television.

“Gate to Hell”: rulers want to have craters erased for the second time

The rising gases are part of the natural spectacle in the Karakum Desert: In 1971, Soviet researchers caused a drilling accident near the city of Derweze.

They looked for gas and when they were drilling they found a cavity, which collapsed the earth's ceiling.

The hole, 70 meters wide and 20 meters deep, was created.

Since then, large amounts of methane gas have been released.

The crater attracts thousands of travelers annually.

© Imago Stock & People / Imago Images

At the time, the scientists decided to burn the toxic gases to limit their spread.

That failed completely.

The fire developed into a long-running hit.

The ruler Berdimukhamedov ordered the erasure of the crater back in 2010, which failed.

In the meantime he renamed the “Gate to Hell” to the “Shine of Karakum”, probably for marketing purposes.

Berdimuchamedow knows how to stage himself. * Now another attempt to extinguish the fire is to be made.

(tu / AFP)