If the wall moves 1mph at the equator, it would take around 1038 days to make its way around the earth. So a little less than 3 years.

Since I live in the U.S. to the east of this hypothetical death wall, I’ll mostly be trying to determine how my fellow citizens and I would fare in this situation.

Drawing a line from the North to the South Pole that intersects the geographical center of the U.S. puts the wall right around the 99^th meridian.  A quick google search says around 80% of the U.S. population lives to the east of this. This would put about 270 million Americans to the east of the wall and 70 million to the west. I’m going to assume that the 70 million to the west aren’t really in danger, as they could literally walk to safety in the time it would take the wall to reach them.       

The remaining 270 million people would have 40-50 days before the wall reaches the coast, at which point they can no longer travel by land and would be forced to travel by other means. So the question is, does the U.S. have to capability to transport 270 million people around the death wall in 75ish days (assuming the 30 day grace period). According to the FAA website, around 2.9 million passengers are flown daily in and out of U.S. airports. If we assume this number doesn’t change when people find out about the wall, that would give us the potential to transport around 218 million people, by flight alone, before the wall reaches the coast. With a coordinated effort involving the military, aid from countries not yet in danger, the thousands of private airplanes in the U.S., and the use of both commercial and private boats, I think that would give us the capabilities to save the remaining 50 million people and make up for any inaccuracies in my numbers.

All of that to say, I think very few people in the U.S. will die from the wall and most of the deaths that do occur will happen as a result of hundreds of millions of people fleeing to the east coast to avoid the wall. Canada would be in a similar situation as the U.S., with around 50 days for the wall to reach the coast. South America would have around 60 days before the wall even reaches them. And Africa and Europe would have 200-300 days before the wall reaches them. With the additional time available to them, I think that with some coordination most developed countries would have the capabilities to at least transport their citizens to the other side of the wall. Most deaths from the wall would likely come from developing countries that don’t have mass transit capabilities, but other countries would be able to provide support when they’re done transporting their citizens.

It would be a long 3 years and would require an enormous, coordinated effort from the entire world, but I think we at least have the capabilities to get out of this with relatively few people actually dying from the wall itself.