Imagine for a minute that Hatia's island of Hispaniola is completely uninhabited by humans, as it was many centuries ago.  No cities.  No buildings.  And no people living there.  Now imagine that the geological fault under the surface of this wilderness island gives way to natural pressures in the earth's crust, and an earthquake shakes the southwest coast of the island.  Would that upset us?  No, of course not.  Only when people show up and get in the way do we classify those natural events as "disasters."  It is the human suffering that those natural events cause which prompt us to ask, "Why did God allow...?"   That question presumes that God should change the laws of nature to accommodate where and how people build their cities.

Rather than blaming God for human tragedy, we can ask why have Haiti's reigning politicians oppressed the people in abysmal poverty?  Why did they permit buildings to be so poorly built?  (News reporters say that better built foreign embassies in Port-au-Prince had only minor damage in the earthquake.) 

Why does God permit any bad thing to happen to people?  Why does God permit hurricanes?  ...cancer?  ...H1N1?  ...economic recession?  ...war?  ...child abuse?  We live in a broken world, and God is not the one who broke it.  The first temptation to sin which confronted the human race was Satan's invitation for us to "be as God."  We took the bate and bit.  Our broken world provides ample proof that we make lousy gods.

We will never know why God permits any specific tragedy which causes people to suffer.  Few of us get to see ways in which God intervenes.  When disasters like Haiti's earthquake hit, our duty is to do all we can to help those in need.