ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan — Turkmenistan said on Friday it would capture the gas fueling its 'Gateway to Hell,' putting the manmade fire pit at risk of closure as the reclusive state seeks to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
The 20-meter-deep Darvaza crater in a remote stretch of the Karakum Desert has been burning for decades, continuously fed by methane gas seeping from the ground since a Soviet drilling accident in 1971.