Is this the gateway to hell?
I do understand why villagers were left baffled and horrified, when they stumble upon this giant hole spewing fire!
That 3ft-large sinkhole was discovered spewing fire and incredible heat in a hillside on the outskirts of Urumqi, in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in north-western China.
The heat being released by the crater is so intense (792°C or 1457°F) that experts can’t get close enough to determine how deep the hole is.
According to locals, the ground in that area had started to warm up for some time… But who would have thought about an underground fire?
The hill is indeed not in a volcanic area. But smoke has often been reported rising from underground on this hill during spring and autumn.
Geologists suggest the fire sinkhole was caused by an underground spontaneous combustion of coal:
“Primitive mining and extinguishing techniques caused coal to burn deep under the ground, which then burned towards the surface.”
This flaming crater just reminds me of Jharia, a town in India built over a eternal burning pit that kills and terrifies locals for more than 100 years.
Yes I would also get pretty much crazy if a mysterious 3ft-wide hole started spewing fire just in front of my nose! Find similar strange stories on Strange Sounds and Steve Quayle. [CEN]
There is a town right here in pa that is also over an eternal fire…its calle Centralia. It was a populated town when I was a little girl 35 years ago with the only odd thing about it was a pipe on every single corner with smoke coming out of it (learned later that was to help with steam release). This town is about 20 miles away from the amusement park Knobles and thank Gahd my poppop drove me thru that town every time he took us there. Because now Centralia is literally a ghost town. Cemetaries are cordoned off and EPA protected, all highways and roads going in and out of Centralia and blocked by 8-15 foot man-mad rock formations or piles of dirt. And instead of sinkholes there are trenches some up to 100 feet long and 20 feet deep 15 feet wide all over the town. Trees are especially awful. The ones that are closest to these trenches are white and so dried out you can push it over even if its a 50 foot oak. Creepy.
That’s really interresting! Thank you for your comment!
I’ve spoken a bit about Centralia in this post… But not as well as you as I’ve never been there!
http://strangesounds.org/2013/10/mysterious-earth-phenomenon-3-amazing-immortal-underground-fires.html