Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.

<passage>:
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that of Earth—and, sooner or later, will happen again! Everyone—all the geologists, at any rate—had known about the Kiowa all even the professionals were interested in knowing. There was never so much as a landslide to bring the Fault to the attention of the Nor was there much in the papers a few years later when it was connection. The population of the states affected was in places as low as five people per square mile! The land was so dry it seemed impossible that it could ever be used except for sheep-farming. It strikes us today as ironic that from the late '50s there was grave concern about the level of the water table throughout the entire area. The even more ironic solution to the problem began in the summer of Service was keeping an anxious eye out for the fires it knew it could expect. Dense smoke was reported rising above a virtually uninhabited The report was—no fire at all. The rising cloud was not smoke, but had other worries at the moment, and filed the report. a dust volcano? Unusual, they knew, but right on the Kiowa Fault—could It may seem odd that the simplest explanation was practically not of the Interior, wondered if the disturbance might not be a settling Still, it was only a theory. It had to be proved. As the tremors grew Edison were shaken to pieces by incredible earthquakes, whole bus- and plane-loads of geologists set out for Colorado, without even waiting They found, of course, that Schwartzberg had been perfectly correct. They found themselves on the scene of what was fast becoming the most violent and widespread earthquake North America—probably the world—has ever seen in historic times. To describe it in the simplest terms, land east of the Fault was settling, and at a precipitous rate. of the land east and west of the Fault seemed no longer to have any East, where sharp reports and muffled wheezes told of continued buckling and dropping, the earth trembled downward. Atop the new earth fissured and trembled, sliding acres at a time to fall, smoking, Dry earth churned like mud, and rock shards weighing tons bumped and rolled about like pebbles as they shivered and cracked into pebbles themselves. "It looks like sand dancing in a child's sieve," said the scene of disaster. "No one here has ever seen anything like it." And the landslip was growing, north and south along the Fault. "Get out while you can," Schwartzberg urged the population of the affected area. "When it's over you can come back and pick up the pieces." But the band of scientists who had rallied to his leadership privately wondered if there would be any pieces. Land west of the Fault was holding firm, though Denver had recorded miles away, the now-familiar lurch and steady fall had already sent several thousand Coloradans scurrying for safety. All mountain climbing was prohibited on the Eastern Slope because of the danger of rock slides from minor quakes. The geologists went home to add to the heaving chaos below. And the cliffs were higher every day as the land beneath them groaned downward in mile-square gulps. As the Fault moved north and south, new areas quivered into unwelcome dry, they boiled into rubble. Telephone lines, railroad tracks, roads snapped and simply disappeared. Virtually all east-west land communication was suspended and the President declared a national emergency. and rapidly approaching the border of New Mexico to the south. Trinchera and Branson were totally evacuated, but even so the over-all death toll had risen above 1,000. Away to the east the situation was quiet but even more ominous. On the actual scene of the disaster (or the it is impossible confusion. Prairie and hill cracked open under intolerable strains as assured that everything possible is being done." But what could be Perhaps the North Platte disaster had been more than anyone could take. to be officially admitted that there was an exodus of epic proportion. Nearly two million people were on the move, and the U. S. was faced with a gigantic wave of refugees. Rails, roads and air-lanes were jammed with terrified hordes who had left everything behind to crowd eastward. All through October hollow-eyed motorists flocked into Tulsa, Topeka, Omaha, Sioux Falls and Fargo. St. Louis was made distributing center for emergency squads which flew everywhere with milk for babies and dog food for evacuating pets. Gasoline trucks boomed west to meet the demand for gas, but once inside the "zone of terror," as the newspapers now called it, they found their route blocked by eastbound cars on the wrong side of the road. Shops left by their fleeing owners were looted by refugees from further west by a mob of would-be passengers in Bismarck, North Dakota. Federal and State troops were called out, but moving two million people was not to autumn sunshine, growing higher as the land beneath them continued its inexorable descent. On 21 October, at Lubbock, Texas, there was a noise variously described as a hollow roar, a shriek and a deep musical vibration like a church bell. It was simply the tortured rock of the substrata giving way. The second phase of the national disaster was beginning. The noise traveled due east at better than 85 miles per hour. In its wake the earth to the north "just seemed to collapse on itself like was somehow to ride out the coming flood, "but like as if the land else that evening. At approximately 8:30 p.m. the town shuddered, Then, as ominous creakings and groanings of the earth announced the through the night. The earth continued its descent, eventually tipping during the night of panic Memphis residents were sure they were doomed. Washington announced the official hope that the Ozarks would stop the Despite hopeful announcements that the wave was slowing, had virtually stopped after inundating Oklahoma City, was being swallowed up in the land was still sinking, and the floods were constantly replenished from Whirlpools opened. A great welter of smashed wood and human debris was rescuers on the cliffs along what had been the west bank of the Pecos River afterwards recalled the hiss and scream like tearing silk as terrible sound they had ever heard. "We couldn't hear any shouts, of course, not that far away and with all because of the spray." The cliffs proved to be the only effective barrier against the westward along the line of the original Fault. Irresistible fingers closed on precarious havens for half-drowned humanity. Waves bit off a corner of Virtually the only people saved out of the entire population of Pierre, rescuers. The barn, luckily collapsing in the vibrations as the waves along what is roughly the present shoreline of our inland sea, it was estimated that over fourteen million people had lost their lives. No one could even estimate the damage to property almost the entirety of eight states, and portions of twelve others, had simply vanished It was in such a cataclysmic birth that the now-peaceful Nebraska Sea unrepeated—disaster, it is hard to remember the terror and despair of that any but the topmost layer of water has cleared sufficiently suspension by the restless waves will not precipitate fully even in our remnants of the eight submerged states remained after the flood, but none of them wanted to surrender its autonomy. The tiny fringe of population decided to retain political integrity. This has resulted in the continuing anomaly of the seven "fringe States" represented the eight to have completely disappeared, could not in any sense be Unimaginable too would have been the general growth of population in the states surrounding the new sea. As the water tables rose and manufacturing and trade moved in to take advantage of the just-created axis of world communication, a population explosion was touched off of

<question>:
Why would the band of scientists fear that there might not be pieces to pick up once the affected area population returned?

<options>:
A They were doubting the theory by Schwartzberg.
B The damage would be too substantial and there would nothing left to salvage.
C They feared that no one would escape alive.
D Theft in the area was also on the rise.

<answer>:

B