After nuclear testing causes global sea levels to plummet, journalist Philip Wade seeks the truth from an evasive government as society faces the horrors of a world in which the water has run out.

In this classic British science fiction novel of environmental disaster which was initially published in 1958, the oceans drain through a hole in the earth's crust, and the governments of the world tyrannically manipulate the public narrative of this event in a way that rankles with journalist Philip. A prescient vision of totalitarian government and ecological chaos.