 What major change happened to the country's landscape as the tragedy continued?
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. Tremendous fissures opened up perpendicular to the Fault, and a general subsidence of the land was noticeable well into Kansas and Nebraska. The western borders of these states, and soon of the Dakotas and Oklahoma as well, were slowly sinking. Abandoning its bed, the river spread uncertainly across farmland and prairie, becoming a sea of mud beneath the sharp new cliffs which rose in rending line, ever taller as the land continued to sink, almost from Canada to the Mexican border. Nearly two million people were on the move, and the U. S. was faced with a gigantic wave of refugees.
 Several states totally sink, and water takes its place.
 State lines were made to be different after the upsets by the earthquakes.  Much of the landscape is upset by the earthquakes, throwing dirt and dust everywhere.  Several states totally sink, and water takes its place.  New cliffs and fault lines continued to form.