I think this area is in the Ethiopian Great Rift Valley, which is part of the East African Great Rift Valley and as such an area of techtonic drifting zone, whatever that may mean in terms of the science underlying such a concept.
The observers (witnesses on the ground) said the crack radiates out heat, inside such cracks are concentration of heat, causing also suffocation to the humans and costing human lives. There should have been samples collected and analysed as to the correct composition of the materials coming out through the opening from deeper part of the earth, upper mantle or deeper continental crust.
The man said he poured a lot of "Benzin" into the crack to manage to get down and pull out the bodies of the deceased victims. I gues that this must have created some sort of chemical reaction and somehow reduced the suffocation effects of the substances in the materials.
Earlier Ethiopia has got a department of Geology in the science faculty of Addis Ababa University, I am not sure if this has been developed to a level of a faculty or even a university at the national level by now.
In my view such studies are needed, Ethiopia has got a lot of interesting topics related to geology, including the Great Rift Valley itself and associated techtonic activities, which could entail potentially a very high hazardous condition down the road. We remember the recent major Earth Quake in Syria and Turkey and the catastrophe that it caused.