{"id":494,"date":"2010-06-09T23:56:32","date_gmt":"2010-06-09T13:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/?p=494"},"modified":"2010-06-09T23:56:32","modified_gmt":"2010-06-09T13:56:32","slug":"the-other-drilling-disaster-turkmenistan-1971-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/2010\/06\/the-other-drilling-disaster-turkmenistan-1971-2010-494.html","title":{"rendered":"The Other Drilling Disaster: Turkmenistan 1971-2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Came across this at the 2012 Forum<\/a>, and it’s just bizarre – like the BP oil leak that has the USA upset, in eastern Europe there is a leak that has been unplugged for almost 40 years! Makes for a better pic as well…<\/p>\n

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\nEnvironmental disasters:\u00a0Gulf oil spill lesson # 1- Drilling can sometimes unleash a hell on Earth\u00a0(June 8, 2010)<\/p>\n

Giant hole still burning in the desert<\/p>\n

DERWEZE, Turkmenistan\u00a0\u2013 Geologists were excited to find rich deposits of methane gas when they conducted geological surveys in Turkmenistan in the 1970\u2019s but almost no one could imagine the hellish nightmare they would later follow the discovery. In 1971, engineers begin drilling for natural gas just outside the small village of Derweze, Turkmenistan. The exploratory hole soon ruptured into the opening of a large underground cavern. The massive cavern was filled with methane gas. Plugging the hole proved fruitless. Underground pressures soon caused the methane from the cavern to vent. What started as a small hole soon morphed in a giant sinkhole crater. The ground beneath the drilling rig collapsed and fell into the chasm. Feeling the inhabitants of the village of Derweze were in mortal danger from methane fumes; the decision was made to burn off the methane gas in the cavern in a process known to oil and gas engineers as \u2018flaring.\u2019 The fire has been burning ever since. In April 2010, the President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow visited the site and ordered that the hole should be closed, or other measures be taken to limit its influence on the development of other natural gas fields in the area. As of June 2010, no one yet has been able to figure out a way to extinguish the fire burning in the giant sinkhole in Turkmenistan. Meanwhile, the crater is growing. Villagers of Derweze call the giant sinkhole\u00a0Darvazka, \u2018The Gate to Hell.\u2019<\/p>\n