Turkmenistan’s president has ordered the extinguishing of the country’s “Gateway to Hell”, a fire that has been burning for decades in a huge desert gas crater.
Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov wants it put out for environmental and health reasons, as well as part of efforts to increase gas exports.
Mystery surrounds the Darvaza crater’s creation in the Karakum Desert.
Many believe it formed when a Soviet drilling operation went wrong in 1971.
But Canadian explorer George Kourounis examined the crater’s depths in 2013 and discovered that no-one actually knows how it started.
According to local Turkmen geologists, the huge crater formed in the 1960s but was only lit in the 1980s.
The crater is one of Turkmenistan’s most popular tourist attractions.
“We are losing valuable natural resources for which we could get significant profits and use them for improving the well-being of our people,” the president said in televised remarks.
He instructed officials to “find a solution to extinguish the fire”.
There have been numerous attempts to end the fire, including in 2010 when Mr Berdymukhamedov also ordered experts to find a way to put out the flames.
In 2018, the president officially renamed it the Shining of Karakum.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 8, 2022
🔥 The Erta Ale volcano which is one of the most amazing natural sites on the planet and the world’s oldest active lava lake remains active.
The recent field observation of expedition leader and guide from Volcano Discovery Ethiopia, Enku Mulugaeta, confirmed that the volcano’s south crater went through little morphological changes before the current eruption started.
A part of NE crater wall (1-2 m) collapsed two times – the first time in the evening between 31 December 2021 and 1 January and the second time in the morning of 1 January, 2022.
The south crater, located in the central part of the caldera, is occupied by the lava lake that has undergone some changes. The intense activity of the lake was accompanied by rapid movements of the lava from the north to the south and small lava fountains, about 1 meter tall.
The terraces on the northern side of the crater appear to have been swamped by the lava after which the lava lake level decreased.
the lava lake is occupying the summit crater now and is back after 5 years of inactivity! The estimated depth of the lake is about 35 meters from the rim with a crater diameter of 200 meters. On 31 December, two big collapses have been observed, meaning that the lake got wider.
As to what exactly caused the eruption and whether it fed new flows from its main outlet channel or whether it was an independent batch of lava that burst out from a flank fissure, is not clear yet.
Erta Ale is the site of the largest of only five known lava lakes in the world. Temperatures inside the cauldron are said to reach around 1,100 degrees Celsius (2,000 °F). The volcano is known locally as “Smoking Mountain” and “Gateway To Hell.”
Erta Ale is said to be one of the very few Actual ‘gateways to hell’ right here on earth.
Hell—a concept we have heard about in almost every culture’s mythology and popularized by the Greeks. A ‘Door to Hell’ is a passage that leads into the underworld, where the creatures of the dead prevail, under the supervision of the God of Hell. Of course, depending on the culture, this so-called God of Hell is known by various names—from Hades to Lucifer.
🔥 Erta Ale was featured in the 2010 movie Clash of The Titans as an entrance to Hell.
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