The Sun scorches the cracked earth, a wavering mirage confuses the eye, and dry air and dust suck the moisture from your mouth and eyes. Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression is one of the hottest, driest and lowest places on the planet.
The area is located in the Afar Region of north-east Ethiopia near the border with Eritrea. The climate here can only be described as cruel. But against all odds, people do live here. The Afar people call it their home.
The Danakil Depression is a contender for the hottest place on Earth, at least if you measure the average year-round temperature (reportedly 34.4C) rather than focusing on isolated bursts of extreme heat. Worse, it only receives 100 to 200mm of rainfall per year and it is also one of the lowest places on the planet, at 410ft (125m) below sea level. Combined, these factors make it one of the most inhospitable environments in the world.
If the climate was not enough, the region’s energetic geology makes it look like an alien land. It is a strange geological phenomenon that should be witnessed by all. Walking around the area you feel like you are on another planet. There are volcanoes with bubbling lava lakes, multi-coloured hydrothermal fields, and great salt pans that dazzle the eyes.
The Danakil Depression is the northern part of the Afar Triangle, a geological depression caused by the Afar Triple Junction: a place where three tectonic plates join. The Depression overlaps the borders of Eritrea, Djibouti and the entire Afar Region of Ethiopia. It is part of the great East African Rift Valley. This is why you see lava lakes lighting up the night sky, faults and fissures scarring the landscape, and steaming hot springs and geysers.
One day millions of years into the future, the plates will have moved apart so much that the salty waters of the Red Sea will spill over, creating a new ocean and drowning this strange landscape forever. Then, the Danakil Depression will be the birthplace of a new ocean.