First person to enter burning ‘door to hell’ reveals what he found at the bottom
Topics: Science, News, World News
Callum Jones
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/National Geographic UK
Topics: Science, News, World News
The first ever person to enter the burning 'door to hell' has revealed exactly what he found at the bottom.
George Kourounis, a explorer and adventurer, certainly loves to live life on the more dangerous side.
And he's done some pretty crazy things - such as tornado chasing through extreme environments in midwestern America to taking a risky dip with some piranhas in Venezuela.
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And perhaps the most obvious evidence that Kourounis loves the thrill is the fact he tied the knot on a crater of an erupting volcano in the South Pacific.
Yep, that's some way to begin married life, eh?
But a 2013 trek to remote Turkmenistan may be one of his most daring expeditions yet as Kourounis was the first person to descend into the 30-meter deep pit of fire known as the 'Door to Hell'.
I mean, who else can say they've been to Hell and back?
The drop is a crater in a large natural gas field that has been burning for decades in Central Asia.
It is believed to have all started after a Soviet oil rig fell into the crater in 1971 - with a decision being made to just set the pit on fire in an attempt to get rid of the rig.
But that did not exactly go to plan, as the resulting gas-fed flames continue to burn to this very day 50 years on.
The adventurer had wanted to visit the site for years and, after two years of just trying to get in Turkmenistan, he was finally able to do so.
Equipped with his heat-resistant suit, he made his descent, and when speaking about what he found at the bottom, Kourounis said: "It is burning with a tremendous amount of flame like there is a lot of fire down there."
He continued: "Day or night, it is clearly burning. You can hear the roar of the fire if you stand at the edge.
"The heat, if you are downwind of it, is unbearable.
"There are thousands of little flames all around the edges and towards the center.
"Then there are two large flames in the middle at the bottom, and that is probably where the drilling rig hole was for the natural gas extraction."
The adventurer spent a few days preparing before his descent into the 'door to hell' - but that didn't make it any less nerve-wracking.
"I can tell you when you are standing on the edge of this gigantic crater filled with fire—it is intimidating," he said.
"It wasn’t dark at all. As a matter of fact, you are surrounded by flames, so everything has this orange hue."
He also said he felt 'a bit like a baked potato' in his suit that looked like 'aluminium foil' - which is a pretty apt description I'd say.