An
Italian photographer has captured aerial footage of a crater that has burned
continually in the middle of the desert for more than four decades. Dubbed “the
Door to Hell”, the Darvaza crater is
a 69m wide, 30m deep hole located 150 miles from Turkmenistan’s
capital, Ashgabat.
It
was accidently created when a group of Soviet engineers were exploring for
sources of natural gas saw their rig collapse in 1971. Alessandro Belgiojoso
used a drone to
take HD pictures and footage of the fiery pit.
“Some
miscalculation led to machinery and most probably also operating engineers
falling into the ground,” he said. “As gas poured into the atmosphere, making
it impossible to live in small villages even at great distance in the desert,
the best option was to light up the gas and wait until the gas field would
eventually dry up. This story is not something to be proud of and tourism is
not really welcomed by the authorities.”