All language subtitles for Life.After.People.S03E08.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[serious music]

- [Narrator] What would happen

if every human being
on earth disappeared?

No matter how we might vanish

this is the story
of what could happen

to the world we leave behind.

Now on "Life After People."

[static crackles]

Of all the things humanity
built to power the modern world,

there are some so volatile

that they're always on
the verge of exploding,

and when we're gone, there's
nothing to keep them in check.

[explosion roars]

Everyday products become
incendiary weapons.

- Those cans and containers

would be popping off
like a bunch of grenades.

- [Narrator] The chemicals
that once helped feed millions

unleash destruction
across farmland instead.

- It would be like a
massive bomb went off,

scorching everything for a
quarter mile in every direction.

- [Narrator] And what happens

when the nuclear waste we've
spent billions to contain

breaks free of its
underground prison?

- The threat of the atomic age

doesn't disappear with humans.

It's just waiting
for a comeback.

- [Narrator] Without
people, the world

will blow the lid
off what we built.

And the question isn't

if these ticking time bombs
will go off, but when.

Welcome to Earth,
population zero.

[disquieting music]

It's a blistering day
in Houston, Texas,

but the city is shrouded
in ghostly silence.

There are no tourists sweating

beneath the San
Jacinto Monument.

No workers at the Space Center

toiling in the suffocating heat.

- In the summer, Houston
can get brutally hot,

as hot as 110 degrees or higher.

Famously hot enough to fry
an egg on the sidewalk.

- [Narrator] The
city is sweltering.

And there's an unseen
danger concealed

in every neighborhood,
every home,

behind cabinet doors,

shrouded in darkness,
waiting to explode.

- People don't realize

how many pressurized products
we leave lying around.

Almost every kitchen
and bathroom and garage,

you'll find aerosol cans.

We don't give it
a second thought,

but every one of those is
a little pressure ball.

- Inside an aerosol can
you've got two things:

the actual product

and then a compressed gas
like butane or propane.

It's squeezed down under
pressure into a liquid form

so that when you press the
nozzle, the liquid expands,

turns into a gas, and
propels the product outwards.

That's super useful.

Until it's not.

- These cans are only made
to handle so much heat.

After about 120
degrees Fahrenheit,

the pressure reaches
a critical limit.

- [Narrator] In
the time of people,

Houston was alive with
the thrum of engines

and the whirl of
air conditioners.

Now the power is gone.

Plants are silent.

And there's nothing
to cool buildings

baking under the merciless sun.

- On a 110-degree day,

a house without air conditioning

could easily reach
120 degrees or more,

especially in rooms with
south-facing windows

and no airflow.

[subdued music]

- In September, 2019
in St. Louis, Missouri,

an aerosol can of dry shampoo

was left in the center
console of a car on a hot day.

The heat caused
the can to explode,

blowing the console
cover off its hinges,

shattering the sunroof

and propelling the can
50 feet into the air.

- [Narrator] All it
would take is hands

to move aerosol cans
out of direct sunlight.

Instead, extreme
heat infiltrates them

and sets off volatile reactions.

[aerosol can booms]

- One can ruptures,
then another.

A burst of flammable vapor
sprays across the room.

- Cans would start exploding
some, one at a time,

some in boxes, I mean in
cars, in homes, in shops,

it would just sound
like gunshots going off

all over the place.

It'd be total chaos.

[explosions boom]
[glass shatters]

- This isn't just
one fluke accident.

That's millions and millions

of pressurized time
bombs now abandoned.

- [Narrator] Not
just in Houston,

but across Texas,
across the globe,

aerosols erupt
like hand grenades.

[aerosol can booms]
[glass shatters]

- So you could have
spray bottles exploding

and splattering these Jackson
Pollock paintings everywhere.

Just imagine like
whipped cream erupting

and covering everything
in white foam.

- [Narrator] If single cans
can do this much damage,

how much could be done by
a collection of thousands?

[distressing music]

In the heart of the
American Midwest,

there are no farm hands
tending the fields,

no machinery tilling the
soil or reaping the harvest.

But in Iowa, nearly 124 million
farm animals still graze

from sheep and goats
to cattle and pigs.

- Midwest farm country covers
an area bigger than France.

There are enough hogs and cattle

to supply New York, California,
and Texas for a full year.

A single farm can
grow enough wheat

to bake a million
loaves of bread.

- [Narrator] Not far from
the abandoned state capital

of Des Moines, there's a factory
hiding an explosive secret:

a stockpile of ammonium nitrate.

- Ammonium nitrate
makes up about 80%

of the explosives
used in North America.

[explosion booms]

And that use is mostly
for mining and quarrying.

- [Narrator] But this
factory was never meant

to manufacture destruction.

It was meant to nourish
the soil instead.

[subdued music]

- Roughly half of the
world's food supply

depends on nitrogen-based
fertilizers.

Nitrogen is like a
superfood for plants

and farmers need to get
as much of it as they can

for as cheap as possible.

Ammonium nitrate works in
almost any type of soil,

so it's an extremely
popular base for fertilizer.

- It looks harmless.

It's like chalky white salt.

But don't be fooled, that
stuff has a dark side.

Under normal
conditions, it's stable,

but if it comes into contact
with oil or fuel or soot,

it is very explosive.

Now, if you're thinking you need

to go check the
fertilizer in your shed

to make sure it's not
ammonium nitrate, just relax.

You probably don't.

The concentration in fertilizer
that you buy at the store

is way too low to be
any kind of hazard,

but the industrial stuff

has to be handled
way more carefully,

especially when
it comes to heat.

- [Narrator] In
the time of people,

fertilizer plants were kept cool

to prevent ammonium nitrate
from becoming volatile

because the hotter it gets,

the faster it breaks down
and becomes combustible.

- We've seen this
kind of thing before.

In 1947, the SS Grandcamp was
docked in Texas City, Texas

loaded with 2,300 tons
of ammonium nitrate.

A cigarette tossed into the hold

started a slow-burning fire.

- An hour later,
the ship exploded.

The blast was so powerful

that it created a
15-foot tidal wave

that ripped through the docks.

It killed 400 people and
injured another 5,000.

It even leveled a thousand
buildings in the area.

[brooding music]

- [Narrator] After people,
the power grid is down,

but thanks to a
backup generator,

the power is still on.

But there's no one to
sweep up fertilizer

blowing across the facility

and no one to make sure the
generator is running safely.

- Diesel engines produce
heat, fumes, even sparks,

which is bad news
around a chemical

that can become explosive

under the right or
wrong conditions.

- All it takes is
a single tiny spark

popping off the
generator's exhaust,

drifting lazily through the air,

and landing on a dusty
pile of ammonium nitrate.

When that happens,
you've got a problem.

- But it's not the sudden
explosion you're expecting.

When ammonium nitrate
first starts to burn,

it just kind of smolders
for a long time.

It gives off this
thick white smoke

and it almost looks harmless,

but it's a slow-burning
chemical reaction

that is surprisingly
hard to stop.

- The second that smoke
turns gray or black,

that's the danger sign.

It means soot and hydrocarbons

are mixing with the
ammonium nitrate,

creating the perfect fuel-rich
conditions for detonation.

- [Narrator] The ammonium
nitrate is smoldering,

and when the generator fails,
the temperature will rise.

What will happen when more

than 66,000 pounds
of it explode?

[grim music]

- [Narrator] Two
weeks after people,

Iowa farmland is being consumed

by the livestock
we used to tend.

But at an abandoned
fertilizer factory

outside of Des Moines,

a ticking time
bomb is smoldering.

And it's heating up.

- As ammonium nitrate burns,
it can release oxygen.

And fire feeds on oxygen,
so as the fire grows,

it produces more oxygen that
makes more fire and so on,

and it's got this
positive feedback loop

that makes things
more and more intense.

The ammonium nitrate also
starts to break down,

producing heated gases.

And if you have a confined space

like a warehouse or a silo,

that's gonna build
up the pressure.

All you need now is some carbon

and you've got a perfect
recipe for detonation.

- The fire is so intense

that it could heat the
inside of the warehouse

to as high as 500 degrees,

hot enough to liquefy
the roofing asphalt,

which would begin to drip
down like molten black lava

on to the burning fertilizer.

And what does the
asphalt contain? Carbon.

[subdued music]

- [Narrator] There's no
ventilation, no release.

The air grows heavy,
the warehouse swells,

and then the inevitable happens.

[fire roars]
[glass crashes]

- It would be like a
massive bomb went off.

It's almost like a
major military airstrike

scorching everything for a
quarter mile in every direction.

[explosion booms]

- The roof tears off

and a toxic orange-red
mushroom cloud

of nitrogen dioxide
shoots into the sky.

- [Narrator] The blast
was only the beginning.

Now, a lethal cloud is sweeping
over every living thing

in every direction.

- Nitrogen dioxide
becomes nitric acid

when it touches water, so
it's gonna react with dew,

with sap, and that's
gonna leave chemical burns

all over plants and
trees over a huge area.

- Nitrogen dioxide is
also deadly when inhaled,

just a few whifts of it

can burn your lungs
from the inside out.

In high enough concentrations
it can kill in a few minutes.

- This crucial nutrient that
helps to grow the crops,

is now doing the exact opposite,

wiping out all the
farms and crops.

- [Narrator] Huge
swathes of land

are stripped bare
by the toxic cloud,

spreading for dozens of miles.

But what new
disasters are lurking,

lying in wait to wreak
havoc on the heartland?

[distressing music]

In the Pacific Northwest,

Seattle, Washington
is a ghost town.

No sight-seers peer down
from the Space Needle

and food rots in the stalls
of the Pike Place market.

But less than 200 miles away

lies a complex network of
safeguards designed to keep

one of the biggest nuclear
threats on the planet at bay.

- In the world without people,

the nuclear threat
is not the thousands

of nuclear warheads
we've left behind.

Those are locked up tight,

layered with safety systems
and engineered not to blow up

without some serious
human intervention.

The real danger is the toxic
waste that we left behind.

- They call it
radioactive sludge.

It's the byproduct of the
plutonium production process.

And one of the
biggest stockpiles

of this stuff anywhere in the
world is Hanford, Washington.

- Back during the Cold War,
Hanford cranked out plutonium

for the nation's
nuclear arms race.

- After the Cold War,

Hanford was left with a
massive radioactive hangover.

The reactors were shut down,

but the mess was
just left there.

- [Narrator] The Hanford site
is teeming with animal life

from elk and marmots to
bald eagles and coyotes,

but it's also home to
some 56 million gallons

of radioactive sludge

stored in 177 underground tanks.

And keeping it contained
is a constant struggle,

one that relies heavily
on human intervention.

- Radioactive sludge
is highly unstable

and gives off heat,

so it requires constant
stirring and cooling

to prevent a chemical
reaction and pressure buildup.

- Essentially, someone needs

to keep an eye on this
situation all the time

because if you don't,
gases like hydrogen

and ammonia build up
inside of the tanks.

And if the pressure gets too
high, it doesn't just seep out.

It bursts.

Scientists even have a
name for this phenomenon.

They call it a burp.

- [Narrator] In
the time of people,

pressure was
carefully controlled

by skilled technicians,

and when the contents of a
tank became too dangerous,

they were diluted with water
and moved to another tank.

But even with
rigorous oversight,

accidents have happened before.

- Back in 1957 at a
place called Mayak

in the Russian Ural Mountains,

one of the waste
tanks lost power.

The cooling system failed.

Nobody noticed in time

and the waste heated up,

the pressure spiked and,
kaboom, that tank exploded.

[grim music]

- It launched a massive
radioactive cloud into the sky

that stretched across
thousands of miles.

Towns were evacuated, whole
regions were contaminated.

It was one of the worst
nuclear disasters in history.

- [Narrator] Many of
the Hanford site's tanks

are modern double-walled beasts,

but others are single-walled

dating all the way back to
the start of the program

in the 1940s.

Without people, the
pressure is increasing

and there's no one
to watch the gauges,

no one to operate the pumps.

How long before
this lethal cocktail

of nuclear waste
escapes its cages

and what new havoc
will it wreak?

[brooding music]

- [Narrator] Two
years after people.

On the outskirts of
Santa Fe, New Mexico,

a massive warehouse
sits in silence.

There are no workers
to drive forklifts,

no pallets being moved,

but inside, there's
an explosive danger

just waiting to happen.

- Warehouses like
these can be huge,

like the length of
three football fields.

Now they have metal roofs,
so they need to be cooled

with air conditioning
and industrial fans.

But without electricity,

the temperature inside those
things is gonna be stifling.

- The roof traps the heat.

Outside temperatures would
spike in the middle of the day,

so inside it could get
as high as 140 degrees.

- We all know that aerosol
cans can explode in the heat,

but if you had thousands
of them going off at once,

I would be a little bit
like peppering the inside

of a warehouse with
machine-gun fire.

- [Narrator] In the time
of people, simple cooling

and product rotation would
prevent aerosols from exploding.

But now, the fans are silent

and products have been
roasting on the shelves.

First, one can
ruptures, then, another.

Soon, the air is filled
with the chaotic thunder

of hundreds of
explosions every minute.

- The thing about
these explosions

is that they're
completely random.

I mean, at least with a
bullet, you can aim the gun,

but these things are exploding

in every direction with
no rhyme or reason.

[aerosol cans crashing]

- Cans will be flying everywhere

with enough force
to shatter bones.

Picture a popcorn maker, but
every kernel is razor sharp

and carries the destructive
force of buckshot.

- And then of course,
you've got things

that are extremely flammable.

Things like cooking spray or
solvents or cleaning agents.

- One spark.

It could be from
a static charge,

it could be from the
sudden pressure release

of metal on metal.

It wouldn't take much.

The vapors ignite.

- Without humans, there
are no first responders,

there's no fire department.

There's no one to
contain this explosion.

So the resulting fire
is just gonna burn.

[fire crackling]

- [Narrator] Triggered by
countless tiny explosions,

the warehouse is
wiped off the map.

But there's more
pressure building.

[distressing music]

A year later.

On nearly every highway
across the globe,

a similar threat is lurking.

18-wheelers lie in their
final resting places,

carcasses strewn
among the skeletons

of human transportation.

On an abandoned stretch of road

in the American Southwest

in one truck's aging cargo
hold sweltering in the sun,

there's a catastrophe
waiting to unfold.

Fueled by a substance

found in homes and stores
all over the world.

- Paint thinner is made out
of really volatile stuff

like toluene,
xylene, and acetone.

Imagine 9,000 gallons of that
stuff sealed in steel drums

and baking in the summer heat.

- Paint thinner is more
explosive than gasoline,

and in the heat, it evaporates,
becoming a dense vapor,

like a heavy
super-flammable steam.

- If a spark hit inside
the tanker, watch out.

It's gonna be a
massive explosion.

[barrels creaking]

- Inside the steel drums,
the pressure builds.

There are no relief valves.

And as the temperature rises,

this volatile cocktail
inside expands,

forcing vapor into the
weakest seams of the metal.

- [Narrator] In
the time of people,

this dangerous payload

would never have been left
to swelter in the heat.

Now there's no one
to keep it cool,

and no one to check for
problems.

And for months, a pinhole
leak has been releasing

a shimmering cloud
of explosive fumes

just waiting for a spark.

- It's a textbook chain
reaction just waiting to happen.

All it takes is a burst

of expanding metal
scraping against steel.

- [Narrator] The fumes
ignite, the flames spread,

and all at once, the
whole truck explodes,

turning the highway into
a riot of sound and smoke.

- Without people to
keep all this in check,

thousands of these
ticking time bombs

are scattered all over the
continent, all over the world.

[flames roar]

- [Narrator] In the Sudan,

an abandoned tanker
truck carrying propane

is consumed by flames.

And outside Buenos
Aires, Argentina,

a diesel tanker erupts.

[explosions boom]

All over the world, cars
are consumed by flames

and pierced by shrapnel

turning empty vehicles into
tombs of scorched chrome.

And as plants and animals
reclaim the roads,

more time bombs are
lurking in the heat.

[grim music]

10 years after people,
the toxic cloud

that spread just
outside of Des Moines

has left destruction
in its wake.

But to the south in Oklahoma,

more than 32 million
acres of farmland

have been growing unchecked.

Once carefully managed,
crops now rot, go to seed,

and grow again.

And as spring arrives,

there's a new threat
lurking in the soil.

Not a plant, but a
disaster waiting to happen.

And it's alive.

[grasshoppers chitter]

- All winter long,
grasshopper eggs

have been lying
dormant in the soil,

and now the ground's warming,

they're starting to hatch.

- And these guys are voracious.

Each one can eat up to 250%

of its body weight
every single day.

Left alone, they'll
rip through farmland

like a swarm of
tiny weed whackers.

- In the world we used to know,

this is the moment when trucks
and planes would roll out,

spraying insecticides
across millions of acres,

but that defense system is gone.

- [Narrator] In
the time of people,

American farmers spent

more than $18 billion
a year on pesticides.

Now, there are no trucks
rumbling through the fields

and no technicians
to spray them.

And the grasshoppers

aren't just feeding,
they're transforming.

- A lot of people don't
realize that a locust

is really just a grasshopper.

With nobody to control the
grasshopper populations,

there are gonna be a lot
more of them than normal.

And when the crowd
gets big enough,

it triggers this massive change.

- The constant bumping
into each other

is a signal to the grasshoppers

that there is too many of them
for the present food supply.

It means they need to
find more food elsewhere.

They need to fly farther
and cover more ground.

They need to become
super grasshoppers.

- They change into
something else. Literally.

They become locusts.

- They stretch their wings,
their brains totally rewire

to make them less
afraid and more active.

And what results is a swarm.

Because listen, one
insect's not gonna cover

a lot of ground, but
millions of them?

They can cover huge areas.

- [Narrator] A single
swarm of locusts

can contain 40 to
80 million insects.

And every time they
descend on a patch of land,

they strip it bare,

leaving behind nothing
but dust and bone.

- It's the stuff of nightmares,

and it's been that way
for thousands of years.

Locust plagues
show up everywhere.

I mean the Bible, obviously.

But even before that,
in Greek mythology

and on Ancient Egyptian tombs.

- The last time the
US got hit hard,

it was in the 1930s
and it was biblical.

In Colorado alone,

they counted 7 billion locusts
in just 10 square miles.

Trains couldn't
even climb hills.

Their wheels slipped on the
grease of crushed locusts.

- [Narrator] The
swarm is relentless.

Wings beating, jaws tearing

through Oklahoma
farmland acre by acre.

How much damage can they do

before they're done?

[distressing music]

A decade without people.

And in Oklahoma,

the sound of tractors running
and farm equipment working

has been replaced by a
much more sinister hum:

the sound of locusts, swarming
in the air by the billions,

tearing through what was
once the bread basket

of a now-vanished civilization.

- The sky darkens

and then you hear it
before you see anything.

The air buzzing
like a giant engine.

[brooding music]

And there they are
on the horizon.

All across the Midwest, a
swarm 200 billion strong.

- These things are
like flying jaws.

They travel up to
120 miles per day.

A single swarm can
stretch for miles,

but what's most terrifying
is how fast they work.

- Locusts don't
nibble, they strip.

Crops: gone. Grass: Gone.

Whole fields reduced
to bare dirt in hours.

- They'll even eat
the wool off of sheep.

They'll chew the
hair off of cattle.

They'll bite through
canvas tents,

wooden fences, leather saddles.

If it has a trace of organic
material, it's on the menu.

- [Narrator] For months,
the swarm consumes

everything in its path.

And the locusts
aren't just erasing

what humanity left behind,

they're decimating
other species as well.

- Locusts don't leave anything
behind for other insects

like beetles or butterflies
or caterpillars,

but they also eat all the food

that grazers would normally eat.

So there's nothing for deer,

there's nothing for horses,
there's nothing for cattle.

That swarm is gonna leave
a lot of death in its wake.

- But there is one thing

that can stop a swarm of
locusts: cold weather.

By fall, the
swarm of locusts would

begin to slow down,

and by the winter, the
adults would be all dead,

but not before laying their eggs

and burying them
deep underground,

protecting them from the cold

to rise again come springtime.

- Locusts can breed
like wildfire.

One female can
lay up to 300 eggs

in a single season.

Now multiply that by billions

and you start to
get the picture.

- [Narrator] Like a time
bomb with a new fuse,

the threat of locusts once
again sleeps beneath the soil,

a vicious cycle that could
repeat itself for centuries.

[static crackles]
[moody music]

In the Pacific Northwest,

56 million gallons
of radioactive sludge

have been straining

against the aging tanks
that confine them.

10 years after people,

there's no one to stir the
sludge to keep it cool,

no one to vent the
building pressure.

- That radioactive sludge
starts to literally brew.

And it contains all
sorts of nasty substances

like nitrates, cesium,
plutonium, and uranium.

- The heat keeps rising,
the gases keep building up.

There's just nowhere
for them to go.

Each tank has its own
level of volatility,

depending on how hot it is and
how much pressure it's under.

And some tanks may be
weaker than others.

But eventually they're all
going to reach that red line.

And one explosion
could trigger more.

- Think of it like a row
of overstuffed balloons.

Pop one hard enough and
the others start straining.

And if many are close to
critical pressure already,

it could unleash
a domino effect.

[tanks bang]

- [Narrator] One tank lets go.

A violent shuttering
belch of radioactive steam

that cracks the silence
and rattles the earth.

Instantly, pressure spikes
across neighboring tanks.

Now, Hanford is a
radioactive minefield.

Steel groans, walls bulge,

another tank gives way.

[explosion booms]

Then another.

- That much radioactive
material released all at once

would be catastrophic for
all plant and animal life.

And the most
terrifying thing of all

is that there would
be nothing to see.

No explosion, no mushroom cloud.

The toxic wave
would be invisible.

It would have no
taste, no smell.

- For hours, nothing
would look different,

but things would be different.

The closest plants and animals
are probably already dead.

It's just the ones farther
away don't know it yet.

It's not like fire or
acid, which burns things.

Radiation kills from the inside.

It damages your DNA, so it
takes a little bit of time

for the system to go
haywire enough to kill you.

- The air would be filled
with radioactive particles

that would be immediately
carried away by the wind.

The sludge would seep
into the groundwater.

- And what's sitting
right next door?

The Columbia River.

A perfect highway for
radioactive runoff.

Water, fish, wildlife,

they're now all
in serious danger.

- [Narrator] Nuclear waste
is spreading like a plague,

silent, invisible, deadly.

With no one to contain it,
how far could it spread

and what damage will it wreak?

It's been 25 years since
the end of humanity,

but there's something
we left behind,

something that's been festering,

growing more and more dangerous
with each passing week.

- There are more than
2,600 municipal landfills

in the United States

and thousands more
that have been closed.

The average American
also generates

about five pounds
of garbage per day.

So the amount of trash

that will be left
behind after people,

it's pretty significant.

- Normally, trash
is buried in layers,

kinda like a garbage lasagna,

and then it's capped with
clay or plastic sheeting

to keep the oxygen out of it.

- Beneath the surface,
bacteria go to work,

breaking down organic matter,

old food, diapers, newspapers.

And in the process, they
literally fart out methane.

Lots of it.

- [Narrator] In
the time of people,

landfills were routinely vented

to siphon off methane and
other dangerous gases.

Now there's no one
to monitor them,

no one to relieve the pressure.

- Methane is
extremely flammable,

and in the heat, pressure
builds, the trash compresses,

maybe lightning strikes, maybe
a chemical reaction sparks.

And then you're in big trouble.

- Back in 1992 at a landfill
in Charlotte, North Carolina,

a methane buildup
blew up a nearby home

and launched it right
off its foundation.

And that was with
people still around,

still trying to manage it

- [Narrator] From coast to
coast, the danger is rising.

Leaked methane hangs
above landfills

like an invisible deadly haze.

And beneath the ground, deep
pockets of it lie in wait,

and it's just a matter of time

before they begin to
unleash destruction.

[static buzzes]
[grim music]

50 years after people,

radioactive waste from
the Hanford Nuclear Site

has spread to surrounding cities

bringing with it rot and decay,

infecting everything it touches.

- Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick

are all between 5 and 15
miles from the Hanford site

so toxic chemicals would
easily spread there.

Wind would likely carry
radioactive particles

as far away as
Yakima 60 miles away.

Plutonium and cesium are
able to embed themselves

in porous materials like brick,
stone, concrete and wood,

that would speed up the
rate of decay significantly.

- Roofs are gonna cave in,
buildings are gonna collapse,

and after just a few decades,

the cities near the Hanford
site are gonna start

to look like Chernobyl's
ghost city of Pripyat.

Pripyat was built

to house Chernobyl's
workers and their families,

and it was evacuated when
the reactor melted down.

So radiation has been
working away at it.

And as a result, that whole
city has just been sinking

into the surrounding
forest ever since.

[subdued music]

- [Narrator] Already abandoned,
the ghost towns surrounding

the Hanford site are
now ruined husks,

a haunting reminder of the
power of nuclear fallout.

But what has become of the
living creatures roaming

the contaminated wilderness
of the Pacific Northwest?

[static crackles and buzzes]
[gloomy music]

50 years after people.

All across the United States,

landfills have
become land mines,

explosive methane gas crawling
through the decomposing trash

and snaking up to the surface.

- In low-lying basins, you
would have pools of rainwater,

but it's tainted
by toxic chemicals,

deadly reminders of
man's long-ago presence.

And all the while the
heat is intensifying.

- The land itself has become
this massive, invisible,

ticking time bomb.

- [Narrator] Not all
at once, but at random,

disaster comes in the form of
thunderstorms, static charges,

even simple sparks from
metal striking metal

as the relics of humanity shift

in the piles of
refuse we left behind.

[explosion booms]

- Methane explodes
from the ground

in a violent, flaming geyser.

The earth is ripped apart.

All kinds of garbage launches

in all directions like shrapnel.

- The chemical
waste catches fire

and flames spread
across the landfill.

- It's like a chemistry
set gone wrong under there.

Flammables, oxidizers,
and pressure,

building in every direction.

- Remember, there are thousands
of these garbage dumps,

and the danger would be there
in every single one of them.

Now, since they're spread
out across the country,

they continue to explode

whenever the conditions
happen to be right

in each particular place.

If you could watch
it from space,

it would be like the
longest, slowest,

most unpredictable fireworks
show you've ever seen.

- [Narrator] In Mississippi,
South Carolina, and California,

human waste erupts in flames.

These time bombs have gone off

and there are thousands
more to follow.

[static crackles and buzzes]
[brooding music]

A hundred years after people,

the wilderness surrounding
the Hanford Nuclear Site

is alive with the
sounds of wildlife,

but with radiation
contaminating the ground,

the nearby Columbia River
and everything it touches,

not everything is as it seems.

- The Columbia
River Basin is rich

with beautiful,
delicate plant life

like sage brush
and native grasses,

aquatic vegetation
all around the river.

- The Hanford waste
gets sucked up by plants

just like normal nutrients.

But that's where they
cause their damage.

Sometimes they kill plants
outright, other plants survive,

but they grow up
deformed or distorted.

- As for the Columbia itself,
the radioactive sludge

and dust would leak
into the river.

- Over time, contamination
climbs the food chain,

small fish to big fish,
to birds and mammals,

animals that rely on the river

like otters, ospreys, and more.

- Not all radiation leads to
spiders the size of Buicks

or deer with two heads.

Most mutations are
much more subtle

because what the radiation
does is subtly rewrite DNA,

which is like the tiny
instruction manual

inside of our cells.

That changes the way

that cells grow,
divide, and function,

which can also change
the way animals look

and also the way they behave
and grow and reproduce.

- If you look at the exclusion
zone around Chernobyl,

the animals are weird there.

The birds are less likely

to produce color properly
in their feathers.

Mice and frogs have
strange markings on them.

And get this, cuckoo birds
have less complex songs

depending on how much
radiation there is

in the soil where they live.

So you can see these
effects on wildlife,

and those are exactly
the kinds of things

we're gonna be seeing happening
around the Hanford site.

[haunting music]

- [Narrator] Without
people, nature still finds

a way to thrive.

- Chernobyl taught
us something wild.

After the reactor blew in '86,

the surrounding area was
a radioactive ghost town.

But in less than a decade,
nature came roaring back,

complete with wolves,
boars, wild horses,

and even European bison.

- The same thing could
happen at Hanford.

In the dead zones, sure,
some species might disappear,

but out on the edges where
the radiation's lighter,

life could find a way.

[static crackling]
[moody music]

- [Narrator] 200
years after people.

Swarms of locusts
still darken the sky,

leaving behind only
dust and cracked earth.

But the markings of
all that we built,

even the powder
kegs we left behind,

are outlasted by Mother Nature

and the signs of
our very existence

are slowly swallowed
up by wilderness.

- All those ticking
time bombs we built

have long since
gone off one by one.

What remains of the human world
is scattered in fragments.

- No matter how significant
our contributions,

our monuments, there
is some comfort

in knowing that the
world will keep turning.

Mother Nature will find a
balance with or without us.