It still amazes me that there are crazy, terrifying places on this planet that I have never heard of.
There truly are some incredible places that people love to visit, like shocking abandoned cities or amazing natural wonders. But there are some destinations that are scarier than others, like this awesome active volcano.
So when I came across something called the "Door to Hell," I imagined that the name had to be an extreme exaggeration. After all, what could be scarier than a volcano? The answer took me by complete surprise.
In Turkemistan, there is a large desert called the Karakum Desert. Driving though this desert, you might expect to see a whole lot of flat land and sand.
But in Derweze, Turmekistan, there sits a giant hole in the ground. And inside that hole is one of the most incredibly terrifying sights on earth.
Scroll through below to see this desert's Door to Hell. Have you ever seen anything like it? I sure hadn't.
Would you ever want to visit such a place? Let us know in the comments!
In 1971, Soviet engineers set up a drilling rig and camp in the middle of the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan, where they believed they had found a massive oil field. However, after finding natural gas instead, the ground around the rig began to collapse, engulfing the entire drilling camp in an enormous crater.
This is what that crater looks like today. Believing that the gas escaping from the crater would be hazardous, the Soviet engineers set the gas on fire, hoping that it would quickly burn off within a couple of weeks.
The engineers could not have been more wrong. Instead of burning for a month, the crater is still on fire today, over 40 years later.
The enormous hole is known as the Darvaza Crater, but is more commonly called the Door to Hell or the Gates of Hell, due to its terrifying size and appearance.
In 2010, the president of Turkmenistan ordered that the hole be closed to visitors and filled in, but as of today, that order has yet to be carried out.
Turkmenistan is ranked as one of the top countries in the world for natural gas reserves. But the Soviet engineers failed to take this into account during their incredible mistake back in 1971.
In 2013, explorer George Kourounis became the first person in the world to travel down to the bottom of the crater. Sponsored by National Geographic, George was able to set foot on the crater floor for the first time in history, and collected samples of microorganisms from inside.
The Door to Hell has attracted over 50,000 tourists in the past five years alone. Sitting open at about the size of a football field, the crater is quite often surrounded by visitors camping or simply stopping by to take a look inside.
This scary but awe-inspiring crater is one of the most impressive sights in the entire world. Forty years after a single drilling accident, the Door to Hell continues to burn brightly.
Would you want to visit this terrifying crater? Let us know in the comments.
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