Mouth Of Hell On Fire - No, Not That One, The Batagaika Megaslump In Northern Siberia

[hatrack]

After a month of warm, dry weather and wildfires, the huge crater nicknamed ‘Mouth of Hell’ is now under direct threat. The fear is that flames burning on the rim of the depression will weaken the permafrost and cause a major enlargement of the Batagai or Batagaika ‘megaslump’, seen as a wonder of Siberia.

Already growing by some 30 metres a year, say scientists, the destruction of trees are likely to rapidly increase the speed of an phenomenon visible from space. Reports say the destruction of the tundra is ‘alarming’ in the Verkhoyansk district of Yakutia region, also known as the Sakha Republic.



In the Batagai area, fire is raging on the world-renowned depression,’ reported Vesti Verkhoyanya. One account says the the impact of lighting in ‘dry’ thunderstorms is akin to carnage from ‘incendiary bombs’.

Some 237 hectares of dense high forest are ablaze, according to latest reports. A pall of smoke hangs over the district. Known by some as the ‘Mouth of Hell’, locals see this spectacular crater as superstitious, and call it the 'gateway to the underworld'.





EDIT

http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/hell-on-fire-raging-bush-inferno-at-batagai-depression-giant-gash-in-the-tundra/

[Hortensis]

1. From melted permafrost. Grim.

Last I heard about a friend's biologist nephew, he was over there studying I believe probably this slump, or another, what was being revealed under all that forest.