It's blatantly obvious to any rational person that natural disasters are not any sort of punishment for human sins. For one thing, there isn't the slightest pattern of the more evil being punished more, and for another, from geological and meteorological research we know that this quakes, hurricanes, etc. have been occuring where they were occuring before humans even existed or lived in these areas.
The basic problem is you have a lot of people with a very childish and primitive view of religion who haven't directly faced and deeply thought about the "when bad things happen to good people" problem.....
When God created the Earth, it was perfect and there was no death. After sin entered the earth a whole series of curses were brought upon man. Death was one of them. Work was another. Pain and suffering also entered the earth.
I believe that in the old testament, God used disaster to punish people and told the people when and why he did it. In Luke 13:1-5 however, Jesus explains that those who die in natural disasters or things they can't control are not always more guilty of sin. Therefore punishment by disaster went the way of the animal sacrifice. (Punishment for sinful behavior still exist)