7The Door to Hell

The Door to Hell is situated in Derweze, a village in Turkmenistan located in the middle of the Karakum Desert.

Derweze’s 350 inhabitants are semi-nomadic and were disbanded by the President of Turkmenistan in 2004 after he stated that they were an ‘unpleasant sight’ to tourists. Derweze is rich in natural gas, and the Door to Hell gas crater was a product of miscalculation. In 1971, Soviet geologists made a mistake when they accidentally tapped a cavern filled with natural gas while drilling.

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