A half-century-old gas fire at a location known as the “Gateway to Hell” was believed to have been considerably extinguished by Turkmenistan on Thursday.
Since 1971, when Soviet scientists unintentionally bore into an underground pocket of gas and then chose to light it, the fire has been raging in the Karakum desert.
Since then, the fire has been releasing enormous amounts of methane, a gas that fuels climate change.
Without giving a specific time limit, officials said the fire, which has grown to be the most popular tourist destination in the remote nation, had been cut in half.
According to Irina Luryeva, a director at the state-owned energy company Turkmengaz, “once a massive glow from the blaze was visible from several kilometers away, hence the name ‘Gateway to Hell,’ only a faint source of combustion remains today.”
“At an environmental conference in Ashgabat, the capital, many wells have been drilled around the fire to capture methane,” she claimed.
The fourth-largest gas reserves in the world are thought to be found in Turkmenistan, one of the most closed nations on earth.
The International Energy Agency claims that it is the largest methane emitter in the world due to gas leaks; the authorities dispute this assertion.
