The Mirny diamond mine in Russia is the world’s second-largest man-made pit. It has a diameter of 3,900 feet (1.25 kilometres) and is more than 1,722 feet (525 metres) deep. It has the potential to suck tiny planes and helicopters.

Mirny, a mystery mining village in eastern Russia, is located deep in the Siberian region. Mirny is located around 280 miles (450 kilometres) north of the Arctic Circle and has a population of about 40,000 people.

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Mirny is known as a ‘mono-city’ since the bulk of the town’s residents works for Alrosa, the world’s largest diamond miner by volume.

The village is located next to an open-pit diamond mine with a diameter of 3,900 feet (1.25 kilometres) and a depth of more than 1,722 feet (525 metres). The Mirny mine is the world’s second-largest man-made pit.

Following WWII, Stalin ordered the mine’s construction in the 1950s to meet the Soviet Union‘s demand for industrial-grade diamonds. The tough terrain and inclement weather, though, made it difficult. During the winter, the temperature drops below minus 40 degrees Celsius. Car tyres crack as oil freezes in the bitter weather.

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To create the mine, workers were reportedly obliged to utilise jet engines to warm the earth and explosives to break through the permafrost. By 1960, it was fully operational. According to the BBC, the huge hole yielded diamonds worth at least $17 billion over the course of half a century.

The Mirny mine yielded a 342.57-carat fancy lemon yellow diamond, the largest ever discovered in the country, according to the Daily Star.

The sheer volume of diamonds extracted from the mine has piqued people’s interest over the years, as no one understands how it managed to produce gems worth billions of dollars.

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De Beers, the world’s top distributor of diamonds, requested a tour of the mine to investigate its production rates. It took six years to get the approval but when the access was granted, they were given only a 20-minute tour, Daily Star said.

The mine has the potential to suffocate small planes and helicopters due to its sheer depth. When the mine flooded in 2017, more than 100 people were trapped within. The Mirny mine has remained a mystery to this day.