This week, portions of the continental United States saw record temperatures that caused deaths, power outages and generally made a lot of people realize climate change is impacting the world much more severely than politicians seem to realize. And to top all that off, now the ocean caught on fire.
Social media lit up with concern and much-deserved hyperbole when video emerged of a fire right in the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently caused by a broken oil pipe near a Pemex oil platform. The result was a literal fire in the middle of the ocean, with crews trying to somehow contain it amid millions upon millions of gallons of water.
https://twitter.com/EoinHiggins_/status/1411075158006284290
The first video looks somewhat like it’s all taking place underwater somehow, but it actually is ignited oil on the surface of the water. You know, like Cleveland In 1969-style.
🚨 Sobre el incendio registrado en aguas del Golfo de México, en la Sonda de Campeche, a unos metros de la plataforma Ku-Charly (dentro del Activo Integral de Producción Ku Maloob Zaap)
Tres barcos han apoyado para sofocar las llamas pic.twitter.com/thIOl8PLQo
— Manuel Lopez San Martin (@MLopezSanMartin) July 2, 2021
Basically every video of this thing was horrifying.
https://twitter.com/blkahn/status/1411078040654860289?s=21
We already know that there’s a Door to Hell in Turkmenistan that was created by a similar gas incident, and who can forget the eternal fires underneath the (mostly) abandoned city of Centralia, Pennsylvania. So there’s definitely some precedent here.
According to Reuters, though, the fire had been put out by Friday night. Still, feel free to add this to the growing list of ways humanity is quite literally setting the planet on fire in startlingly dramatic, supervillain-like ways. I’m sure it’s all going to be fine.