First of all, sorry if my English is bad. I’m trying to figure out a post-apocalyptic story, so I came up with the so many times recurred asteroid of the size that killed the dinosaurs. Is kind of a classic now. Let me describe it for you.
So, the rock is coming, we got six months of advice (just to set a time). Astronomers of all over the world says it’s going to hit Paris (I just choose a city of Europe I like, and is far enough from my country to -maybe- let some people survive). Governments of all over the world is trying so hard to keep the supply chains as intact as possible. A difficult task. Riots emerge in every city; governments fail to keep peace and order. In the Argentina of my story corruption is common, and the president, selected scientists, high functionaries and some military forces decides to use the money of the country to save his lives and build a bunker of his own to reconquer the country after the impact. People is left on his own.
The wealthy one may have a bunker, or build one if they got the resources. The rest of the people is going to die.
The asteroid strikes. Many miles of Europe are now a crater. The rest is burned down in a fireball of vaporized rock. Sediments are ejected to the skies. An earthquake never recorded before is felt in every corner of earth. Gigantic tsunamis eradicate every coastal city. Then, the ejected soil comes down to earth. Is raining fire. The temperature of the earth reaches so many degrees that anything in the surface is burned. Forest dies. The Amazon rainforest, the lung of the world, is just fire and smoke now. The little particles that persist in the sky are dispersed by the winds, covering the entire atmosphere. The dark is here. Photosynthesis organism are now struggling to live. The climate change in a chaotical way. Where it was raining before now suffers droughts. Maybe is raining in Atacama.
For two years -maybe-, the sun is blocked by the dust. But not everything is dead. Some animals survived long ago. Scientific studies tell us that this could be the survivors:
- Crocodilians. At least just the ones in freshwater.
- Some birds (neornithes).
- Maybe the 75% of mammals. Depends its size and if they are capable of hibernate underground. Maybe multiturbeculates, placental and marsupials.
- Many insects.
- Ferns!
- Some seed plants, if they are lucky. Most of them are going to disappear.
Now let’s talk about the fortunate people who could get into a refuge.
You, lucky and egoist government functionary/scientist/wealthy one got some stockpiles of food. You got an underground bunker. But not everything is so easy. The food is going to run out. No, there’ no hydroponic, that need a lot of power and we don’t have it. No, you can not install a mini-nuclear generator in six months. No, you can’t stock enough fuel for two-five years of power generation. Your water-air purification is as bad as we got it right now, with the current technology.
Let’s say… six months? Six months (could be more) and you are now in a problem. You ate your last can of food. Your companion may look tasty now, but that’s not good. That’s a bad action. What now?
I think about these options:
- Cannibalism, as long as you can breathe and drink water in your bunker. Someone has to get out sometime and reconquer the world. Is a sacrifice.
- Just get out and confront the world.
Let’s think in option two, that’s the focus of this question. You are in a dark world, with dust in the sky. Few plants. Crazy climate conditions. Floods, drought, cold. Especially cold.
If you are lucky enough to reach freshwater, maybe there is some life there to hunt. Some fish in there may survived. Maybe you can eat insects, small mammals, something.
You can’t obviously harvest, there’s not enough sun. It’s going to take maybe three or more years to see the first edible crop in the world.
Scavenge? Maybe. Can something survive in such apocalypse? Dog food? Canned food? Ha, maybe not enough, even for that small percentage of survivors.
Maybe you cross paths with survivors of another lucky bunker. Let’s get evil. Why if we eat them? You don’t wanna die, they neither. Have you heard of the Andes accident in 1975? Let me make you a resume: anthrophagy.
Eventually, I guess, the sun is going to get out of that dust, and we can reconstruct society.
Here goes the question, in some kind of reality check:
Could someone survive the post impact earth if they go out of the shelter after a few months?
EDIT:
I don't know if I can edit my question like this, sorry if I can't. Considering the comments of @user535733 and @Alexander, and in order to get a better answer than "yes" and "no", let me rephrase the question like this:
How can the bunker survivors that left the refugee some time after the impact event (let's say months) survive in such world?
Let me add, if I can, that you are "prepared" to "reconquer" the country before entering the bunker. You might have seeds that might be harvest in the new society, some storage knowlodge of sciences and techniques, some weapons to defend yourself, some clothing. You only lack a good long lasting bunker and essential resources for you in such apocalypse.
