A hole in the desert in Turkmenistan has been blazing for decades. But the current president now wants to put an end to that.
Druze crater, in the Karakum Desert, is known as the “Gate of Hell”. It is a huge pit 70 meters wide and twenty meters deep that has been burning for decades. The hole is located in a natural gas field.
The president now wants to eliminate Turkmenistan’s popular attractions after five decades. He ordered a solution to put out the fire. “We are losing precious natural resources with which we can make great profits and which we can use to improve the well-being of our people,” the president said in a televised statement.
According to President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the burning pit also harms the environment and the health of the local population.
The fire started after a Soviet drilling accident in 1971. A gas cave was hit and the oil platform and the ground beneath it collapsed. To prevent the spread of dangerous gases, the Soviets lit the gas.
Previous attempts to put out the fire failed. In 2010, Berdymukhamedov already gave a similar task.
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