The Asteroid

The Asteroid, an 8-mile wide and 7-mile long asteroid crashed into the Southeastern United States, creating a huge crater which swallowed up about a quarter of the United States's land area, and obliterated 4 US states. The crater, the explosion and the shockwaves killed about half of the population, and the resulting global fires whose ash blanketed the sky for 1000 years and caused the New Ice Age killed almost all of the remaining people, bringing the world population down from 9.1 billion people in 2045 to 3.2 million in 2060. It also caused the 6thmass extinction event, which killed off 97% of all life on Earth, worse than the Permian Great Dying.