The Earthquake

On February 27th, a massive earthquake struck Chile, killing at least 200 people and causing widespread damage. This comes within a few months of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. That earthquake was less powerful, but killed hundreds of thousands of people. I've heard many people claim that these are signs that we are in the end times. They see this as God punishing a group of people for their sins.
In the case of the Haitian earthquake, a well-known and controversial host of a Christian television show chalked this up as God punishing the Haitians because of the strong witchcraft and demonic activities located in Haiti. Obviously this stirred up a lot of criticism and outrage with the public. I'm not going to say whether he was right or not in making these statements, but it's my opinion that we shouldn't try to figure out why God allows this types of things to happen. Maybe God really was punishing a sinful nation, but how does someone proclaiming that idea and condemning an entire nation help further Christ's Kingdom? This doesn't exactly attract people to the Gospel message. I think some people have a desire to try to figure God out so that us humans can understand Him. But how can mere humans try to perceive the motives of the Almighty God and Creator of the universe? God has His own reasons for allowing something like this to occur. It's not our place to try to figure it out. All we're called to do is pray for the people suffering from this disaster and help them in any way we can.