The day after us

How Earth would reset itself in 11 brutal steps

Image: Peter Herrmann

What if every human vanished right now? For the sake of this thought experiment, let’s assume that there was no big war, no virus—just poof, gone. Nature wouldn’t hesitate to reclaim what we built. From silent cities to nuclear disasters, the world would start changing immediately. Here’s what would actually happen, and how fast, if people disappeared from Earth.

Image: Andriy Nestruiev

Power plants need constant maintenance. Without humans, fossil fuel stations would shut down within just a few hours. Backup generators at nuclear and hydro plants might last a couple more days, but without human oversight, even they’d fail.

Eventually, power grids would collapse worldwide, and complete darkness would fall on cities within a day or two.

Image: Nenad Spasojevic

Pumps in underground transit systems like NYC’s run nonstop to keep out water. Without maintenance (and more importantly, power), those pumps would stop working in just a couple of days.

By the end of the first week, tunnels would begin flooding, damaging infrastructure, and washing out entire underground networks.

Image: Praswin Prakashan

Most domestic animals rely entirely on humans for food, water, and shelter. Dogs might form feral packs, but millions—especially indoor pets—would eventually die of starvation.

Livestock like cows and chickens would perish or become easy prey, disrupting rural food chains. However, within a few generations, some could revert to free-roaming behavior, similar to their wild ancestors.

Image: Lukáš Lehotský

Without humans, nuclear power plants would quickly become major hazards to all surviving life. Most reactors would automatically enter into safe mode and shut down within hours, as automated systems detect the loss of the electrical grid.

However, cooling systems require active maintenance. Within a short time, without intervention, reactor cores would begin to overheat. Multiple Fukushima-style meltdowns could occur, releasing radioactive material into the air, soil, and water across entire regions.

Image: Juan Manuel Núñez Méndez

Salt, moisture, and wind would destroy most human-made bridges within decades. Without protective coatings, steel corrodes and load-bearing cables weaken over time.

Even iconic structures like the Golden Gate Bridge would likely collapse within 100 years. In contrast, ancient Roman structures and other archaeological remains that have already endured for millennia could survive for many centuries more, barring major seismic events or other natural disasters.

Image: Erik Mclean

Many animal populations would thrive without humans suppressing them. Species once hunted or crowded out would reclaim territory.

Wolves, bears, deer, and even predators like big cats could return to their former ranges, reshaping ecosystems quickly.

Image: Miikka Luotio

Plants would break through pavement and reclaim roadways within a few years—something nature wastes no time doing, as we can see in any abandoned roads or areas today.

Tree roots and erosion would be the first to crack and crumble concrete and asphalt. And without vehicles to maintain wear patterns, roads would soon disappear under grasses, shrubs, and eventually forest.

Image: Tejj

Like many human-made structures, dams require active monitoring to prevent erosion, cracking, and overflow. Within a few decades, silt buildup and unchecked water flow would cause many to breach or collapse.

The resulting floods would be catastrophic, reshaping river valleys and floodplains across entire continents.

Image: Nik

What would happen to our cultural legacy? Without us, it won’t last long. Books, paintings, and digital media would begin to degrade quickly.

Even in semi-protected conditions, paper would yellow and crumble. Museums without climate control would suffer from mold and temperature damage. Hard drives and servers would corrode and become unreadable within decades.

Image: Cédric Dhaenens

Despite the chaos our disappearance would bring to most ecosystems, there’s a silver lining: greenhouse gases would decline over time, gradually cooling the planet. Oceans and plants would absorb the excess CO₂.

Within a few hundred years, global temperatures could return to pre-industrial levels, though damage like ice sheet loss would take millennia to undo.

Image: jean wimmerlin

Most recognizable evidence of human civilization would vanish over a few thousand years. Materials like plastic, glass, and some metals might persist for over 500,000 years, but nature would slowly break them down.

Concrete crumbles, buildings collapse, and corrosion eats metal. After 10,000 years, only massive stone structures like Mount Rushmore or the Pyramids might remain—weathered and barely recognizable. Even our radio signals would eventually fade into cosmic background noise.

We just know that we know nothing

12 facts that people often get wrong

No one can claim to know everything, but most people go through life confident about certain things. However, some of these widely held beliefs are not actually correct, despite their popularity. Let’s have a look at some "facts" you might have gotten wrong!

The idea that insects—particularly mosquitoes—are not animals is widespread, but it’s also incorrect. In fact, insects are the most diverse group within the Animal kingdom, with more than a million species described and representing more than half of the animal population of the planet.

The mistake comes from not considering that "fruit" is not only a culinary term but also a botanical one. Botanically, a fruit is the part of a plant that develops from a flower and contains seeds. This makes tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, and many other foods that we call vegetables actually fruits in the scientific sense.

Countries have a political delimitation, while continents are divided according to geographical criteria. The Russian Federation is the largest country on Earth, bordering fourteen other countries and extending across eleven time zones. It spans across a good part of Eastern Europe, but also across the Ural mountains—one of the recognized borders between Europe and Asia—and stretches deep into northern Asia.

While cold weather isn’t harmless, it is not the direct cause of illnesses like the flu, which are caused by viruses. In colder months, people tend to spend more time indoors and often avoid ventilating rooms, creating conditions that make it easier for viruses to spread and cause illness.

Bats might not prefer to be out during bright daylight, but this does not mean that they are blind. In fact, many species have excellent eyesight, though it is adapted to low-light or nighttime conditions. On top of that, bats also use echolocation, which allows them to navigate and hunt with remarkable precision in complete darkness.

The belief that you must wait a full day before reporting someone missing is a myth popularized by movies and TV shows. In reality, the law does not require a waiting period. In fact, law enforcement agencies stress that the first 24 hours are often the most critical, so a missing person should be reported immediately.

Some man-made structures are visible from space without magnification, but despite popular belief, the Great Wall of China is not one of them. While it is quite long, being over 13,000 miles long, it is relatively narrow, and its earthy colors blend in with the surrounding landscape, making it nearly impossible to spot with the naked eye from orbit.

This one is tricky: Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth (29,032 feet)… if you measure the distance from sea level to peak. For the actual tallest mountain, the answer might vary depending on how you measure. Measured from base to summit, Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the tallest at 33,474 feet—though much of it is underwater. Mount McKinley (Denali) in Alaska rises about 18,000 feet from its base to the peak, making it the tallest mountain entirely above sea level. And Ecuador’s Mount Chimborazo, while shorter in height, is the farthest point on Earth from the planet’s center due to the equatorial bulge.

The Earth is tilted on an axis, which causes the amount of sunlight each hemisphere receives to change as it orbits the Sun. Because of this tilt, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun and experiences summer, the Southern Hemisphere is tilted away and experiences winter—and vice versa. This is why the Southern Hemisphere celebrates Christmas during summer.

Standard medical advice is to gently guide a sleepwalker back to bed rather than waking them, but not because waking them is inherently dangerous. People tend to sleepwalk during deep sleep, so waking them up might startle them or cause confusion and disorientation.

Hair color and thickness are determined by genetics, not by shaving. Hair naturally gets thin at the ends, so when you shave it, the hair shaft appears to be thicker and darker because of the blunt cut. But it's just an optical illusion; the natural size of the shaft remains unchanged.

Coffee is a natural diuretic, meaning it can increase trips to the bathroom. However, the water in brewed coffee still contributes to your hydration and offsets its mild diuretic effect. If you consume coffee in moderation—3 to 5 cups a day, depending on your tolerance—you should be alright. However, drinking extra water on the side is never a bad idea.