So if you are the Soviet Union back in 1971 and oh let's say you are out exploring for natural gas and umm...one of your exploration rigs happens to fall into a sinkhole...that'd be bad right?

Now let's say that all of a sudden natural gas starts coming out of this hole, what do you do?

1. Devise some clever way of stopping the flow of natural gas and perchance capture it for using to create energy?
2. Scramble and backfill the hole as best you can to "cap" the problem and then re-assess how you can access this seemingly rich natural gas deposit.
3. Light it and watch it BUUURRRRRN!

You guessed it!

Soviet ingenuity stretched as far as a match and the natural gas hole has been burning for 40 years...

Awesome! Communism at work.  Second world creation, third world sustained engineering.

Update: This comment from techRivet's #1 fan.  This must be a the cause of Global Warming!  We can blame the ice [not] melting at the south pole on the Soviet Union!

Where oh where is the Goreical to save us?  Oh the Earthanity.

[I may have changed her words up a bit in that last sentence.]