Pandemic: Death of the Old World

Death of the old world

March 22nd 2002, a small lab on the outskirts of Vladivostok, Russia,

Yuri, one of the junior lab techs at the Russian national immunology research laboratories is searching for a sample of Smallpox numbered XVI for destruction.

Searching through the vials of diseases now declared extinct he discovers the correct vial, however as he picks it out of the storage area the vial slips slightly and it bangs into the edge of the shelf on which it had been stored.

Yuri panics slightly, he quickly checks the vial, and it looks ok to him no obvious cracks or breaks. He takes the vial to the incinerator and destroys it. Unfortunately for him and the large majority of the population of the earth the vials seal had been broken. His glove had become infected with en extremely virulent man-made form of smallpox which has a 100% death rate. As he does not know he is infected he makes his way into the disinfecting room, removes his gloves and infects himself.

Within 3 days Yuri is dead.

Before he dies he infects everyone at the research facility, his entire family, everyone at the bus station he uses to get home on the night of the 22nd and everyone at the hospital he dies at. These people infect their families and friends and people they pass in the street.

By the 1st of April 90% of the population of Vladivostok and its surrounding areas are dead, infected people are now appearing in Moscow, Stockholm, Paris, Mumbai, Nairobi, Beijing and Cape Town. As a precaution the United Nations closes all air space and all ports, most nations not already infected close all their borders

By the 1st of May most of the populations off all the major cities and urban areas in Asia, Africa and Europe are also dead, only populations in remote areas and island states that closed all their borders such as the UK and Ireland, and Madagascar remain untouched, as well as all the America’s, Australia and New Zealand.

Within 6 months of the initial infection everyone in Asia, Africa (excluding Madagascar) Europe (excluding the UK, Ireland and Iceland) are dead. Nuclear reactors across the old world start going critical, the former Soviet territory's are particulay badly hit, mainly due to reactor design and poor maintainance in the years following the collapse of the USSR.

After 5 years since the original infection the rest of the surviving world have sent out bio-hazard teams to survey the Old world for any survivors, they find no evidence that anyone survived beyond infection +3 years (2005). But they do discover that the Smallpox virus is no longer viable and the old world is safe to return to.

It is decided that three main bases should be set up in the dead old world.

Europe one in the countryside outside Pisa, Italy. Middle East one in the outskirts of Basra, Iraq. And Asia one in the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia.

To start with the bases are set up using military personnel from the UK, USA, Australia and Canada. These bases were secured from any hazards in the surrounding countryside. Local electricity stations are brought online, water treatment works are restarted and sanitation put in place. Once all utilities were up and running civilian experts were brought in to rebuild areas in which general populations could survive.

in mid 2009, 3 years after the first base has been set up the population of the old world was now in the thousands. It had been decided by the united nations redevelopment group that large areas of the old world will be left for nature to reclaim. Including all of Africa apart from South Africa and the Mediterranean Sea, all of the Indian subcontinent all of Siberia and the inland part of China.

in a replication of the 19th centuary migration began between the two worlds, only this time in reverse, from the new to the old. hundreds of thousands of people moved from the America's back to Europe and Africa.

new communites of religious peoples who saught isolation, farmers wanting more land and people who wanted a new life with new rules set up townships all over the old world.