This story is for persons of eighteen years or over. All comments, good or bad, are welcome and all will be answered.
Part Two
With colonies finally being established on the moon, we began to get visitors that set up observatories to study the stars and such like, but kept themselves to themselves. We'd gone long past jet propulsion and they were moving very fast in creating engines that defied the imagination in terms of speed. We also had many scientists over the years to study gravity and spend a lot of time in creating a means of nullifying this effect in their quest for space exploration.
This had been the dream for setting up our settlements, to finally have a shot at heading for the stars to find a galaxy comparable to ours and a planet that would be able to sustain life as we knew it.
The scientists on earth, with the help of nuclear power had devised a means of propelling a mass at half the speed of light. The problem with this was that there was no such material on earth that could be found or fabricated to withstand this velocity without disintegrating.
That was until the catastrophe struck the earth which was thought to be the Armageddon.
It was one of the observatories that had been set up on the moon that spotted what was first thought to be a meteor. This was then amended to be called an asteroid because of its size. It was estimated to be at least ten kilometres wide and a year's study predicted that with the earth's orbit, it would pass very very close to earth. The danger was that it might come within the earth's gravitation sphere to pull it inwards to collide.
This was now under constant observation and after another year they predicted its speed to be that of millions of miles an hour and was still on its original course. Another startling discovery was that it was not one, but five asteroids travelling line astern and would reach the earth's atmosphere five years hence. This was still another error, for it was eventually eight that they finally counted.
The more astute countries took heed of this and began to make plans to move government and scientists up to high ground, building massive underground facilities. These of course would not survive direct hits but if just one hit an ocean, massive tidal waves would result so height was imperative.
Where these asteroids had come from, no one could say but three years later they were certain that they would strike the earth. This news was withheld from the populace for fear of riots and violence against respective governments.
The North Americans moved to the Rockies. The Russians to the Urals, the Indians to the Kashmir. Peruvians and Chileans went up into the Andes while the Japanese headed for the slopes of Mount Fuji. All transported thousands of tonnes of food and water to these redoubts and it was only in the last month before the expected impact were the rest of the world were told.
The word had seeped out long before the official announcements were made and many people had already been on the move, but now panic set in. Law and order disintegrated into anarchy as people took to the streets to vent their anger on anyone in uniform. Stock markets crashed as investors tried to get their money.
Ships put to sea to take their chance there than be battered in port. Many of these were overloaded and capsized and sank. Many couldn't leave because they lacked fuel that would normally be supplied to them. Airports began to close when they were stormed by angry hordes of people wishing to flee to where, they did not know.
Looters abounded in every city, town and village as police and army deserted their posts to look after their families. Everywhere it became the man with the gun who took control. Many long time feuds were settled and private planes were hijacked only to crash through lack of fuel, amateurs and lack of air control.
As predicted, the asteroids came under the influence of the earth's gravitational pull and veered onto a collision course. Unlike most catastrophes such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions taking place in the hours of darkness, these hit the earth mid morning.
The first one struck at nine fifty two local time in latitude 6.75 north, longitude 114.5 west in the Pacific Ocean. The second, twenty minutes later at lat. 11.5 n, long. 85 w, in Southern Nicaragua. Third and fourth in the Atlantic Ocean at 16.25 n, 55.5 w and 21 n, 26 w respectively.
The Sahara in Algeria suffered the fifth one at 25.75 north and 3.5 east. It had been too late to inform everyone that it wasn't just five asteroids but eight and the sixth landed just east of the Suez Canal. The seventh Kashmir, exactly where the Indian Government had established their base with the last one hitting the earth just west of Beijing in China.
It was cataclysmic! A mass of rock ten kilometres wide weighs millions of tons and the force with which it hit displaced nearly as much water as it weighed. Unlike an earthquake below on the sea bed that causes the water to rise up and move outward in ever increasing circles, this was from the surface. Almost immediately it caused waves several hundreds of feet high, the underwater shock only added its impetus and fed the others above. Like the rippling of a pond, this wall of water thrown up raced away from the epicenter and reached a speed of just over five hundred miles an hour.
The first victim of this was the Galapagos Islands that became completely engulfed, wiping out all human and animal life in its passage. The next apart from smaller islands was Baja California as well as the Western coastline of Mexico. The whole of this peninsular disappeared under water as it raced up the coastline to hit San Diego, wiping it from the map, Los Angeles following very shortly. The city being swept up into the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains, the debris being left high up as the sea swept back with just as much violence as before.
The top of the Gulf of California was virtually emptied of the seas as it was drawn away from the coast to add to the tidal wave that was inexorably moving north to crash across the low lying land of Mexico. To smash through Phoenix and Tucson and flood much of the desert areas before spreading back into Mexico and the Gulf.
The next to be hit by this ever growing tsunami was French Polynesia, taking out Tokelau, the Cook Islands, Samoa and Fiji. The last being hit at the same time as San Francisco with Hawaii already being swept almost clean of human life. Only those who got up above fifteen hundred feet of the two mountains survived. Maui and Oahu and the other islands were swept clean. From Hawaii there wasn't a significant land mass between there and the Japanese islands nearly ten hours later from impact.
By now, the wave was just under a thousand feet and what makes it worse is that as it approaches shallows, it draws that water out to sea to add its volume. Those people who were still at sea level saw the water suddenly begin to leave the shore for as far as the eye could see. Boats were left stranded and the amount of fish struggling with the sudden loss of their environment were uncountable.
It could be heard before it was seen, a growling noise that slowly increased in volume and in the growing dusk this wall of water grew at an alarming pace. The islands of Hokkaido and Kyushu disappeared under water as did most of Honshu, Tokyo and many other famous cities were lost. The Ryukyu Islands were swept clean as were the Kuril Islands.
But before Japan was hit, the West coast of America suffered. From Los Angeles, the storm of water smothered Santa Barbara and went through into the San Joaquin Valley to take out Sacramento while San Francisco was hit from the seaward side. The wave carried on clearing Portland, Seattle and many towns in between. Vancouver was obliterated as the water followed the coastline up into Alaska to be turned by the mountains down to Anchorage and across the Aleutians.
Just after Fiji had been hit, the North Island of New Zealand took the brunt of the Tsunami. Not only did this cause damage to life and property, but the earth itself retaliated. Lake Taupo had been formed in the crater of an extinct volcano only because Rotorua had vents and hot springs that bled off the pressure from below the earth's surface. But the earth's crust there was like having a Pyrex dish upside down in a hot oven with just these vents preventing the pressure from exploding. With these vents being suddenly filled with cold water and coming into contact with the bowl like shield, the conflict was too much. The island literally blew itself apart when this shield exploded.
South Island survived the major force of the tidal wave but was instead smothered by the volcanic debris which suffocated all those that had taken to the mountains.
The Gold Coast of Australia was wiped clean. From Brisbane up to Cairns, the wall of water flooded inland to fill the Great Artesian Basin, a distance of well over six hundred miles. Most of Queensland went under water as did a major portion of the Northern Territory. Most of South Australia survived as did the Western state.
Papua New Guinea suffered taking the brunt and lessening the impact on Indonesia though many islands including the Philippines suffered badly. Shanghai in China was destroyed as well as all the coastal and quite a few inland towns from Vladivostok down to Saigon.
This was just from the first asteroid. South America was still to be hit with this when the second one, twenty minutes after the first, hit the edge of Lake Nicaragua. The shock literally split the southern part of Nicaragua apart, separating the two continents so that the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean became joined.
The Caribbean itself began to rush in to fill this hole in the earth, draining water away from the islands on that side, while the Pacific tried to fill it from the other side. It was also making a gateway for the Tsunami which was gathering power from the first asteroid and was fast approaching this gap.
Though the tide at Kingston Jamaica only dropped an inch or two with this water displacement, it was to suffer a thousand fold as the tidal wave came rushing through this gap and into the Caribbean and instead of the land mass of Costa Rica and Nicaragua slowing it down, compressed it to come through with an even greater force and violence.
It boiled through to swamp Jamaica, Cuba, The Bahamas and Florida. It then was bounced right round the Gulf of Mexico clearing the lower halves of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and back down the eastern seaboard of Mexico.
Panama was hit and the canal ruined as the first tsunami was turned to add more fuel as the western coast of South America was hit. Lima went and most of Chile as it bounced and rolled down off the Andes until it whole thing spent the last of its force down in Antarctica.
Approximately twenty minutes after the second asteroid had hit Nicaragua, the third one struck the Atlantic Ocean roughly four hundred miles east of Guadeloupe and Martinique. These islands and the rest of them in the Lesser Antilles for every island was washed clean. Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam, French Guiana as well as Brazil suffered. The three middle countries were virtually wiped out in terms of population with most of the people living close to the coast.
Even Manaus almost in the centre of Brazil suffered for the Amazon river was a conduit for the wave to flood the city, over eight hundred miles from the coast.
The Eastern seaboard of America didn't miss out either. Every city up to and including Nova Scotia suffered. Millions of people died in this first wave and still more in the subsequent waves for there were four big waves to follow the first one, though lesser in force, they were still as destructive.
Cape Verde Islands disappeared with the fifth asteroid landing in the Atlantic. Dakar of Senegal, Bathurst, Bissau, Conakry, Freetown and Monrovia where taken off the maps with half these countries being swamped and covered in sea water.
The Skeleton Coast of West Africa had the least loss of life as not many people lived there in the Namibian Desert though Luanda and Cape Town suffered.
Europe didn't escape either. The Azores and the Canary Islands as well as Madeira were hit with the most force of the northward thrust of their tsunami. The Moroccan coast and the town of Gibraltar went under water, though many Gibraltans were saved by going up the rock.
Portugal suffered as did north west Spain. Normandy and Southern England, South Wales and Southern Ireland. The seaports in the Mediterranean Sea suffered but not as bad as many only having surges. The loss of life was small but many of these towns and cities were still destroyed by the water. What affected them more was the result of the next asteroid that landed in the lower half of Algeria in the Sahara.
Loss of life was negligible in comparison to the rest of the world but it raised such a cloud of sand and dust that had never been seen before and this was carried north spreading out by the winds and blanketed the lower half of Europe for many months.
Added to this was the sand from the next that hit Suez, blanketing the whole of Egypt and Israel and Jordan with sand that also moved north to cover Syria, Lebanon and Southern Turkey. By hitting Suez, not only did it destroy the town and the lower end of the canal, it sent a surge of water down the Red sea to wreak its havoc to all the towns and cities on either side. It became fierce when it was funnelled into the Gulf of Aden.
The asteroid that hit Kashmir didn't cause tsunami's but it did trigger off earthquakes which shook the regions surrounding the point of impact. India lost its Government in one fell swoop in one massive quake which destroyed the city where they had taken shelter.
The eighth and last strike was a fatal one for the people of Beijing as it landed quite close to the city killing over a million people in its impact. That included the Chinese Government too and this wasn't the only calamity for they still had the tsunami on its way from the South West from the first Asteroid in the form of a wall of water.
The eight asteroids had hit across half the world in less than three hours and it was over twelve hours before the tsunamis that had been caused retreated back to the oceans from which they came. In that half day, nearly half of the world's population died, but another quarter died within six months due to disease and pestilence that followed, not counting the food riots and anarchy that had broken out afresh.
World Health and Aid went out of the window as each country looked to its own first. Russia as a country suffered the least in casualties with America next, them for having had the Rocky Mountains contain most of the waters destruction and warning the public to move as far inland as possible.
India died first with Muslim and Hindu fighting each other and the survivors then dying off from disease and starvation. As did West and central Africa, reverting back to tribal warfare for food. South Africa held out and had to fight to maintain their borders against others that tried to enter to kill for food and medicines.
China suffered in the same way of breaking up into war faring groups to survive. Half of Australia lived though they could not prevent refugees from Asia landing on their Northern shores for what was left of their population were all located in the south and west.
It took nearly a generation of the survivors of various countries of the world to bring back law and order and make plans for the future. This in itself would take a whole book and I'm not really a historian or wish to go into this for I am a Lunarian and it happened many years before I was born.