Turkmenistan’s stunt-obsessed “Leader of the Nation” Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov wants to be remembered as the man who closed the "Door to Hell", the famously fiery Darvaza gas crater that has burned relentlessly for several decades in the Karakum Desert – and scientists at the Turkmengas state holding may have finally hit on a way of granting the wacky dictator his wish.

Berdimuhamedov has something of a fixation on the Door to Hell. In the summer of 2019, he was shown on state television supposedly doing doughnuts in a car only metres away from its edge. After quitting his 15-year presidency in March last year – prior to coming up with the national leader role that allows him to pull rank on his successor as president, son Serdar – the 65-year-old, apparently a bit cross over environmental concerns and wasted gas, declared it was time to put out the fire. But Turkmen experts, ever anxious to give the Berdimuhamedov personality cult the bump in ratings it so often needs, have struggled to devise a way to do that.

On June 19, however, TASS reported Irina Luryeva, laboratory head at Turkmenistan’s Natural Gas Research Institute, as saying Turkmengas specialists have drafted a plan to extinguish the flames by limiting the gas flow into the Door to Hell, officially named the "Shining of Karakum" since 2018.

The proposal, said Luryeva, was "at the approval stage" with the relevant authorities. The essence of the plan was to drill a well near the phenomenon to tap gas, she added, saying: "It is possible to stop uncontrolled flows in such a way, that is, to withdraw more than nature provides."

The gas crater is thought to have appeared in 1971 after a Soviet exploration well collapsed. There is a constant burning and its flaming pillars can erupt to a height of 15 metres. It is thought officials decided to set alight gas streams emerging from the crater because of fears that local inhabitants might otherwise suffer gas poisoning.

In January last year, the BBC spoke to the first man to descend through the Door to Hell.