Darvaza Gas Crater (Door to Hell)
The Darvaza Gas Crater, famously known across the globe as the 'Door to Hell' or 'Gates of Hell' (officially named 'Shining of Karakum'), is a fiery 70-meter-wide crater roaring continuously in the middle of Turkmenistan's Karakum Desert. Created in 1971 when a Soviet oil drilling rig collapsed into an enormous subterranean natural gas cavern, engineers set the escaping methane ablaze expecting it to burn off within weeks. Instead, the inferno has burned continuously for over five decades, illuminating the vast desert sky with a blazing orange underworld light. Local Turkmen nomads and desert travelers consider the abyss cursed, reporting sulfurous winds, disembodied screeches echoing from the fiery depths, ghostly silhouettes drifting along the fiery perimeter, and an overpowering feeling of unnatural dread.