The Biggest Waste Of Natural Resources I've Ever Seen!

I was shown a very disturbing but very spectacular picture today:

This is Hell's Gate in Uzbekistan. 35 years ago a drilling expedition team started drilling in this location and came across this enormous cavern in the Earth. It was that deep the bottom could not be seen, even with any of their tools, it seemed bottomless. But it was also filled with gas. So the team thought it was a good idea to light the flames to clear the gas so they could venture down there. However, what they thought was a small pocket of gas that would clear in a few minutes, turned out to be a gigantic cavern of pure natural gas, and has burned without failure for the last 35 years. What a waste of natural gas! Did any of that team stop and think for just a second about what could possibly be down there. That is now 35 years worth of gas that could have potentially supplied the whole of Uzbekistan. It can't be put out now, so it's just a case of waiting for it all to burn away. What a sorry state of affairs!