The World's Most Bizarre Man-Made Disasters (PHOTOS)

As oil continues to flood into the Gulf of Mexico, we are reminded of just how environmentally destructive humans can be. But this isn't the first time a drilling rig has caused a major catastrophe, and oil spills and carbon emissions aren't the only way in which people ruin the environment. Here are 11 unusual, obscure and bizarre environmental disaster areas, courtesy of the Atlas Obscura.

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The Gates Of Hell, Turkmenistan

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In the desert in Turkmenistan is a hole 328 ft. wide that has been on fire, continuously, for 38 years. In 1971, a Soviet drilling rig accidentally punched into a massive underground natural gas cavern, causing the ground to collapse and the entire drilling rig to fall in. Poisonous fumes began leaking from the hole. To head off a potential deadly catastrophe, the Soviets set the hole aflame.
More info on the Gates of Hell at Atlas Obscura

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In the desert in Turkmenistan is a hole 328 ft. wide that has been on fire, continuously, for 38 years. In 1971, a Soviet drilling rig accidentally punched into a massive underground natural gas cavern, causing the ground to collapse and the entire drilling rig to fall in. Poisonous fumes began leaking from the hole. To head off a potential deadly catastrophe, the Soviets set the hole aflame.

More info on the Gates of Hell at Atlas Obscura

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Most Bizarre Man-Made Disasters

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Most Bizarre Man-Made Disasters

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Comments

[SickHippie]

03:30 PM on 05/19/2010

I've done a lot of research on Chernobyl, and Pripyat in specific. My curiosity was piqued after playing the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (an entertaining and challenging game, I might add, based on a very unusual film). There's some excellent collections of black & white photography floating around, as well as an extremely intense slideshow on the birth defects caused by the meltdown.

It's somewhat comforting to know that even with the worst thing we can throw at it (nuclear meltdown), the earth will heal itself - and rather quickly. Still, it's very telling that the benefit of humans leaving an area altogether outweighs the damage of extreme radiation.

[Tom Joad]

05:27 PM on 05/12/2010

...the picture above of Picher, OK was taken after a major tornado about 2 years ago mercifully leveled most of what was left of the town. The mining tailings (known locally as chat) contain excessive quantities of heavy metals. I met a highschool girl from there who was tested for heavy metal contamination and had very high levels in her system - she knows this and is aware of the long term consequences...how would you like to have that knowledge at age 16?

[Lex10]

12:41 PM on 05/12/2010

Well I think it's fine, building jumbo planes.
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train.
Switch on summer from a slot machine.
Yes, get what you want to if you want, 'cause you can get anything.

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Well you roll on roads over fresh green grass.
For your lorry loads pumping petrol gas.
And you make them long, and you make them tough.
But they just go on and on, and it seems that you can't get off.

Oh, I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Well you've cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air.
But will you keep on building higher
'til there's no more room up there?
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

[Alien Nation]

10:32 AM on 05/12/2010

The Berkeley Pit, Montana - this actually is the home to a number of extremophiles and they believe the things living and digesting this pit could be used for a lot of scientific breakthroughs.

I just wanted to comment on that mainly. The birds dieing is sad but that pit is filled with acid. You can't stop birds from flying into windows and you can't stop them from landing at acid pits. (which FYI there are tons of acid pits across the world, mainly near volcanoes)

[AngryMonkey]

12:19 PM on 05/12/2010

I graduated from Montana Tech. Just a stone's throw from the pit. I was there when the geese died. Whoever controls the pit, i think the EPA, installed cannons around it to scare them away. The pit was formed when the miles of tunnels below the pit started filling with water way faster than was anticipated. One good thing about it is the number of high tech companies surrounding the pit trying to figure out how to clean the metals and such out of the water. There is an overlook at the pit but who wants to look out over a wasteland.

[AtheistUS]

05:12 PM on 05/12/2010

Fanned. Your comments (this and below) differ from so many others on this thread that represent just vague exclamations or extremist claims.

[moatengator83herd]

10:22 AM on 05/12/2010

All because someone discovered what a wheel could be used for. Is Ted K. (Unabomber) right?

[BikeFreak]

12:11 PM on 05/12/2010

Maybe he was correct in how we have forsaken our futures with our modern lifestyles. Maybe he was correct in thinking we should slow down the pace a bit, and learn to live more simply.

He was wrong to murder.

[AtheistUS]

05:04 PM on 05/12/2010

He (the unabomber) was a crazy person.
I think his views were not just incorrect, they were ridiculously incorrect.

And - no - discovering a wheel not necessarily leads to specifically this list of failures.

To guard against any failures, one has to eliminate any chance of success too. Eliminate all life forms on Earth, and you will be free for a few billion years from worries about one of the life forms becoming as advanced as we are now.

[Amy McCarthy]

10:15 AM on 05/12/2010

This is gross and sad. We're the only creatures on earth that create waste that doesn't actually make things better (like, you know, fertilizer?)

[Alien Nation]

10:42 AM on 05/12/2010

To be scientifically accurate all living things that digest food put out carbon monoxide and methane, both are harmful to the environment.

Ammonia and ammonia salts build in digested animal matter - also bad.

We aren't the only thing on earth that produces waste that has no value. We are the only things on earth that manufacture useless junk and put it in trash heaps for hundreds of years.

All I'm trying to point out is that if you think animals aren't guilty of contributing to the waste in this world then you haven't done much research. Anything living does damage to the environment - the one saving grace is that most of the time ecosystems find ways to work around and with things. Time is a major factor and time isn't something that humans can properly comprehend.

[AtheistUS]

05:05 PM on 05/12/2010

"We're the only creatures on earth that create waste that doesn't actually make things better" - This is a wrong statement on so many levels.
How you came to such a wild conclusion?

[WoodyCPM]

09:49 AM on 05/12/2010

At some point, the earth will give us the boot. In fact, from the look of things, we're not going to last much longer. After a million years or so, the earth will return to Paradise.

For all our cleverness and invention, we're a species blinded by greed and ignorance.

[BikeFreak]

12:18 PM on 05/12/2010

Yes.

No species lives forever.

This is an interesting thing I came across:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4369876000541116073#

[AtheistUS]

05:06 PM on 05/12/2010

"After a million years or so, the earth will return to Paradise" - This sounds funny naive. And what is a "Paradise"?

[WoodyCPM]

10:02 PM on 05/12/2010

I'm using the term metaphorically to describe the time before the appearance of humans on the scene. An appearance they made through the process of evolution. Doest that make you feel better?

[cinemabon]

09:34 AM on 05/12/2010

How sad and ironic...

[MyOwnPerson172]

09:33 AM on 05/12/2010

Sad to the point of depressing. Doubly so at the number in and caused by the U.S.

[Kaila]

09:32 AM on 05/12/2010

Awwwww When I was growing up in Tulsa there was an old lady that lived next door named "Vinita" and she would tell me stories about growing up in Picher. Her husband and I think one of her sons actually worked in the mines. It's terrible what it has become but it was neat to see the place that meant so much to her. I bet it would break her heart to see it like that.

[Lahonda]

09:09 AM on 05/12/2010

Someone should start a tour of these sites... oh, wait!

[TTAZ]

09:04 AM on 05/12/2010

This is pretty horrific...

[sioux01721]

08:08 AM on 05/12/2010

What a short-sighted destructive little species we are.

[AtheistUS]

05:07 PM on 05/12/2010

Quite usual species I think. Just a bit more advanced than others.

[Timothy Rich]

06:36 AM on 05/12/2010

that hole seems like a p novel tourist attraction, especially since central asia aint exactly a tourism paradise.

[MadHeart]

04:55 AM on 05/12/2010

They didn't include the Gulf of Mexico oil geyser...