### The Door to Hell
Turkmenistan — A catastrophic drilling collapse created a 230-foot desert sinkhole that has roared with continuous fire for over half a century.
Half a century ago, petroleum engineers hunting for fossil fuels in the Karakum Desert accidentally punctured a massive underground cavern filled with natural gas. The cavern's roof suffered a catastrophic failure, swallowing the drilling rig whole and tearing open a giant sinkhole. Highly pressurized methane gas began pouring out of the crater, threatening to suffocate nearby wildlife and the local village of Darvaza.
To prevent a toxic disaster, scientists decided to burn the methane away in a process called "flaring." They ignited the gas, expecting the fuel to burn off in a few weeks. They wildly underestimated the size of the subterranean reserves. The sinkhole has been roaring with a blistering fire ever since. Today, the crater still pumps out an astonishing 1,300 to 1,960 kilograms of methane every single hour.
Because Soviet records are missing or classified, historians still debate the exact timeline. The most popular narrative says the rig collapsed in 1971. However, local Turkmen geologists argue the sinkhole actually formed in the 1960s and bubbled quietly until it was deliberately lit in the 1980s. (And if you read online that desert spiders purposefully hurl themselves into the fire? It's a myth. Spiders are attracted to the light, but scientists have found zero proof of a mass plunge.)