One of the large craters that mysteriously appeared in Siberia may be connected to a huge explosion loud enough to have been heard 100km away, which could have also caused villagers to see a “glow in the sky”.

A number of large-scale craters have been seen across Siberia in the past few years. They are understood to start as metres-wide holes thought to be tens of metres deep, which then rapidly expand in size.

The Deryabinsky crater in the Taimyr peninsula was discovered by reindeer herders in 2013. It was estimated to be four metres wide and around 100 metres deep. The crater has since increased by a reported 15 times in size making it an estimated 70 metres in diameter, filled with water.

And now a loud explosion and strange light has been connected to the crater. Dr Vladimir Epifanov told the Siberian Times: “There is verbal information that residents in nearby villages – at a distance of 70 to 100km – heard a sound like an explosion, and one of them watched a clear glow in the sky. It was about one month after the Cheyla”.

It is not known what caused either of these incidents to occur, but the expansion of the crevice is understood to be down to the melting of the permafrost. It is predicted that the crevice will expand to the point where its walls collapse cause the lake within it to merge with a nearby, long established lake.

Another crater in Siberia, the Batagaika crater, has been dubbed by locals as “the Gateway to the Underworld” due to its size. It already measures at about a kilometre long and 90m deep, and is widening by around 20 metres a year.