Life After People Page #3

Depending on whether or not

They could escape

From their confinement,

Then things change dramatically

Because you might have lions,

You might have tigers;

Both of which

Would be perfectly capable

Of surviving

In a post-human period.

They'd do better further south

Than they would do

in Washington o.k.

But these are animals

That is perfectly capable

Of figuring out how to do it

And how to survive.

zoo animals

May be the great unknown

But there are things

We can know for sure

About life 20 years

After people are gone

Because there's one spot

On the globe

Where it's already happened.

[music]

it's 20 years

Into a life after people.

Without humans

To apply fresh paint

And fill in cracks,

Even concrete buildings

Have already begun to crumble.

Lack of maintenance turns cities

Into eerie ghost towns.

Animals that have long avoided

Human population centers

Now return to make new homes

Among the decaying walls.

How do we know this?

Because there's one place

In the world

Where it's already happened.

we're standing

In the central square

Of prepay, Ukraine,

The city that was once

The most modern city

In the former Soviet Union.

For 20 years now,

This city

Has been sitting abandoned,

And it really gives you

A picture of what would happen

If people are removed

From a place

Of normal civilization.

evacuated after

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster,

Prepay went

From a city of 50,000

To ghost town overnight.

Dust-covered school rooms remain

As students left them

Just over 20 years ago.

Vegetation pries apart masonry

As it crawls over buildings.

An amusement park

Scheduled to open

Four days after the date

Of the accident

Remains never used.

The park's ferries wheel

Accumulates rust

Rather than riders.

The bumper cars sit in a state

Of motionless decay.

Prepay has provided an amazing

And rare opportunity

To see what happens

To a manmade city

When humans disappear.

I can see

From my Geiger counter

That it's really quite safe

To be here,

Radiation levels

Were not very high.

But you can see

That we've really hit

A point of no return

In recapturing these facilities.

We're in what was

The cultural center

Of the city of prepay.

And indeed, this was a place

Where friends gathered,

Where there would be

Celebrations,

There would be balls,

There would be music,

There would be dancing,

There would be performing

On the stage here behind me.

But after 20 years,

The forces of nature

Have started to decay

This facility.

this concrete soviet facade

May look imposing

But it's no match

For the frigid Ukrainian winters.

As the temperature drops

Below freezing,

Water that has accumulated

In cracks, expands,

Exerting bursting pressure

That pulls apart

The masonry.

As vegetation grows unchecked,

The roots spread

Through foundations and stairs.

These roots suck in moisture

That makes them expand and grow.

Like miniature hydraulic jacks,

Over time,

They slowly push apart

The concrete.

this is only 20 years.

Can you imagine?

What this facility

Will look like after 200 years?

after the accident,

Scientists expected the worst

For the wildlife in the region.

Most of the trees

In a 1 1/2 square mile area

Around the nuclear plant

Were killed off by radiation.

Many animals died.

But incredibly, the effect

Of the absence of humans

For 20 years has outweighed

The initial damage

Caused by the nuclear nightmare.

this is the red forest,

An area

That was horribly impacted

By radioactivity

Due to the Chernobyl explosion.

And the trees that you see

Around me were killed

By the radioactivity.

The original amounts

Of radioactivity were sufficient

To kill all of the wildlife

In the region as well.

But now we see resurgence

Of the wildlife.

As an example of how wildlife

Has prospered here,

We see, here, we have an antler

From a red deer and, obviously,

A fairly large

And healthy red deer.

Red deer are hardly found

In any other areas

In this region

And the Chernobyl zone

Is the only place

That you'll find populations

Of red deer.

We also find Russian wild boars

That the populations in the zone

Are 10 to 15 times higher

Than they are outside

Of the zone.

[speaking Russian]

we're now at the kindergarten

Of Karachi village, not far

From the Chernobyl station.

Children were living here

While their parents worked.

But after that night

In April 1986,

They never returned.

We are in what was formerly

A bedroom in this kindergarten

Where children used to sleep

And rest.

Now, there's

Certain emptiness here.

All these windows are broken.

But the room continues

To live on.

Birds fly in here

And sit on these bars.

We even found evidence

That an owl comes here.

An owl, it regurgitates food,

Fur, bones, and feathers.

Evidently, it likes to sit here

On this window pane.

So this room continues

To maintain life.

Even trees which had proven

Especially vulnerable

To radioactive fallout.

Are finding new homes

In the evacuation zone.

I'm sitting

In the pipit soccer stadium

Where, 20 years ago,

Hundreds of people would come

And cheer

On their favorite team.

You can imagine the laughter

Of the sounds

Of the crowds here.

The activity on the field

Which, 20 years later,

Is barely discernable.

The soccer field now is going

Through succession

As you would expect in returning

To what it was originally

Hundreds of years ago

Which was a mixed?

Deciduous forest.

I grew up in a town

About like this

And I used to enjoy

Riding bumper cars like these

About a half a world away.

And it seems pretty sad

When you look now

And you see what's become

Of this beautiful city

Of pipit and that people

Will never live here again.

But there's another side

To this story,

A very encouraging side;

One that says that life

Is much more resilient

Than what we thought possible.

That in the absence of man,

That life will continue

And that life will thrive

And that the legacy of life

Will always be here,

Because we are a part of life.

Even if we disappear,

Our legacy of life

Will continue.

[music]

Through decaying neighborhoods

In search of their next meal.

In some of the great cities

Of the world,

Solid ground is getting harder

To find.

In the time of humans,

London was protected

From tidal surges

By 10 retractable steel gates

That could be raised

During storms to seal off

The Thames River

From the North Sea.

Without humans

To operate the barrier,

London is defenseless.

Another low-lying city,

Amsterdam,

Meets the same watery fate.

In a New York City high rise,

Some windows have already

Cracked and slipped loose

From their frames and many more

Are on the verge of destruction.

After a quarter century

Of exposure to moisture

And heat without maintenance,

The normally flexible window

Sealant has become rigid,

Locking this window

To its frame.

As the metal frame expands

And contracts with changes

In temperature,

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