Flying in a pollution-detecting airplane, UC Davis scientists were stunned to see just how much methane was leaking from an underground well at Aliso Canyon in Southern California.

It's believed that the leaking well is spewing about 1,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere each day , pilot and UC Davis project scientist Stephen Conley said. That means about 80,000 tons of methane have been emitted from the leak since it was first reported on Oct. 23, 2015.

“To put this into perspective, the leak effectively doubles the emission rate for the entire Los Angeles Basin,” Conley said. “On a global scale, this is big.”

(MORE: State of Emergency Declared Due to Methane Leak )

The report also mentioned that the leak is so dangerous because methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Residents of nearby Porter Ranch already know this, as they've been sickened by the leak, and thousands have been forced from their homes. They've reported dizziness, nausea and nosebleeds, all of which have been blamed on the methane leak.

“This is a mini-Chernobyl ,” Los Angeles County supervisor, Mike Antonovich said during a recent public hearing.

Experts fear it may only get worse. Despite assurances from health officials that the methane leak wouldn't have long-term health effects for nearby residents, independent experts say locals may have been exposed to dangerously high levels of benzene , the L.A. Daily News reported. The chemical compound has been tied to elevated risk of lung cancer, recent studies found, but doesn't cause short-term problems for those who ingest it.

“There’s no immediate threat to their health,” Stephen Rappaport, professor of environmental health at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, told the Daily News. “But I wouldn’t want it to happen to my daughter.”

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