Aftermath: Population Zero Page #2

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Power plants have failed.

Machines have ground to a halt.

Thousands of tons of toxic chemicals

have escaped from the world's plants.

In London, England, Big

Ben is due for its winding.

But without the help of a human hand,

it rings for the last time.

Human time and human

history have stopped.

But life on Earth continues.

Houses and apartments are still

inhabited by increasingly hungry pets.

It's been three days

since anyone has fed them,

so they devour anything they can find.

In the US, tens of millions of dogs

were trapped when their owners vanished.

Now, they either have to break

out of their homes or die.

With the failure of power

plants around the globe,

pets inherit a dark world.

At nuclear power plants

emergency diesel

generators started working

as soon as the electricity failed.

But without power, this

building, and hundreds like it,

will soon cause an

unprecedented disaster.

This is the spent

fuel handling building,

where radioactive fuel

is stored in cooling pools

after it's used to generate power.

The pool is 30 feet deep and filled

with 400 tons of spent nuclear fuel,

the result of atoms splitting

to create nuclear energy.

And split atoms keep

releasing heat and radiation.

The spent fuel is

contained in zircaloy tubes.

And they're dangerous.

If they're not kept under water,

they'll quickly heat up to 1000 degrees.

They need to be kept in

flowing, refrigerated water

for years before they cool off.

Nuclear storage sites can

be found all over the world.

There are 75 in the US alone.

The spent fuel is safe as

long as the generators stay on

and keep the water cool.

But if someone doesn't refill them,

they'll grind to a stop.

And this time, no one's coming.

Pets are now learning

to live off the land.

For some, life was once

rich with food, water.

But now, scrounging through

garbage is what provides meals.

As for water, things have

changed down by the river.

Pumps at the sewage treatment plants

don't work without electricity,

so raw human sewage is

seeping into lakes and rivers.

Abandoned pets aren't the only

animals struggling to survive.

The world is filled with cattle,

1.4 billion of them, and without humans,

they too have been forced

to fend for themselves.

Now that we're gone, 90,000 cows a day

are saved from slaughter in the US.

But dairy cows need 100 pounds of food

and 25 gallons of water

every day to survive.

With no electricity, their

water supply is drying up.

The cows are on their own.

In a cruel twist of fate,

they're safe from the slaughterhouse,

but they may all die from dehydration.

And things don't look much

better for zoo animals.

Trapped in their cages,

many of them will die.

But those once contained by electric

fences are prisoners no more.

They finally break free.

Elephants need up to

400 pounds of food a day,

and finding it in the

suburbs will be a struggle.

These enormous herbivores

will give a serious

pruning to each neighborhood they visit.

Predators also prowl the suburbs.

These hungry lions have spotted

another escapee from the zoo.

But lions are skilled

hunters on savannahs,

not in public parks.

And climbing plastic is one

challenge they can't win.

With the baboon out of reach,

they need to find some easier prey.

Camels, on the other hand, are

having no problem finding food.

They eat almost any vegetation,

grass, leaves, even thorns that

other animals avoid are on the menu.

And with food at every turn,

camels easily adapt to

a world without humans.

The lions have moved

from the park to the porch

as they continue their search for food.

On both sides of the glass, an

unexpected and unusual sight.

Overhead, birds are migrating.

And without humans around,

many more will survive this year.

At night, birds use

the stars to navigate.

With the power on, lights and

glowing skyscrapers resemble stars,

so birds often circle them al

night and die of exhaustion.

But in a world without

humans, there is no power,

so migrating birds fly more

safely through major cities.

Millions will reach their destinations.

Their population will boom.

On city streets, dogs have

gone from pets to predators.

Within a week of losing

their human masters,

they're forming packs and

fighting for dominance.

Which hasn't happened since 2005,

when Hurricane Katrina forced

humans to evacuate New Orleans

and leave many dogs behind.

The dogs started hunting in packs

and threatening humans.

But not all dogs are equal.

With more than 400 different breeds,

some varieties, like this poodle, don't

have the size or strength to compete.

And like wolves, dogs

will kill their own,

so every small dog is a potential meal.

In the next few weeks, most

smaller dogs will be killed.

At nuclear power plants,

diesel generators are

finally running out of fuel.

The power goes off for good

inside the spent fuel buildings.

The cool water stops flowing.

The temperature starts to rise.

In just a few days,

the water will boil and evaporate.

And without people to stop it,

a nuclear disaster greater than the

world has ever seen is now inevitable.

A massive dose of radiation,

500 times greater than what was

unleashed on Hiroshima, will be released.

Dogs from the city are roaming

the countryside looking for food.

And they're hungry enough

to try just about anything,

even corpses.

The fields are littered

with dead dairy cows.

When we were around, dairy cows

provided us with milk for 8000 years.

Now, their rotting carcasses

will do nothing more

than sustain hungry dogs,

who just two weeks ago were probably

eating comfortably from a can.

Not all cows are dead.

In the wide-open spaces

of western North America,

free-range cattle are thriving.

But the same can't be said for the

domesticated animals trapped in pens.

1.5 billion chickens

have died in the US,

leaving only free-range poultry to

roam among a world full of predators.

Death is in the air.

A time bomb ticks.

This world without humans is

about to suffer devastating blows.

Ten days after humans

disappear from the Earth,

the power is off.

Cities are quiet.

Animals that escaped from

zoos and safari parks roam free

but fight to survive.

Predators are a problem,

but we left behind other deadly forces.

For days, super-heated

steam has been escaping

from the spent fuel building

of this nuclear power plant.

With no emergency power,

there's nothing to keep

the fuel from heating up.

The fuel burns through casings

and sets fire to everything in the room.

Radiation equal to 500 atomic

bombs is about to explode.

This is a nuclear disaster

and there's no one to stop it.

A deadly mix of radioactive

particles spews from the plant.

Some of them, like strontium 90,

will be dangerous for 300 years.

Plutonium will be radioactive

for 240 thousand years.

Pine trees near the nuclear

power plant are first to die.

Radioactive particles cling

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