At the Gates of

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The story goes that in 1971, when Turkmenistan was a mere Soviet satellite state, Russian engineers, sought to drill for oil in this part of the Karakum desert. But the structure collapse due to bad planning and the engineers chose to set the escaping gas alight thinking it would all burn up in a matter of weeks or It's still burning. In one other place in the USSR, The Soviet Union later admitted that in 1971 also, they used a nuclear bomb to extinguish a similar fire in neighbouring Uzbekistan.

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Size: 5427px × 3280px
Location: Turkmenistan, Darvaza,
Photo credit: © Kim GORDON-BATES / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No

Keywords: accident, attraction, bloody, burning, collapse, communism, crater, darvaza, desert, fire, flames, fossil, fuels, gas, gates, geography, geology, global, hell, hot, industrial, karakum, landscape, mining, pollution, prospection, soviet, tourism, turkmenistan, warming