From the center of the Karakum desert in Asia, a massive crater dubbed the "Door to Hell," has been spewing flames for more than 40 years.
The ceaseless fire, which can be seen for miles in the distance, is not a natural phenomena. It's the result of a Soviet drilling rig accident in 1971.
Stefan Krasowski, a New York-based business executive who blogs about his worldly travels at Rapid Travel Chai visited the giant underground inferno in 2009.
"Darvaza is a monument to Soviet imperial failure, a roiling wound of failed engineering," Krasowski said.
The adventurer was kind of enough to share some photos with us.
The gas crater, dubbed the "Door to Hell" by locals, is located in the middle of the Karakum Desert in the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan. Afghanistan sits to the southeast and Iran to the southwest.
Turkmenistan has the fourth largest reserves of natural gas in the world, producing about 75 billion cubic meters of gas each year.
Source: Bloomberg
Soviet geologists accidentally hit the underground pocket of natural gas while drilling in 1971.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider