As has been said before, the love of money is the root of all evil.

Aside from that, such disasters have occurred since time imemorial and will continue to...because as long as there is a piece of land and someone to build a house on it, people will build there and people will move in and live there, regardless of risk. They figure it'll happen to "the other guy", not to them.

And to look at it from the other angle...the only way to be TOTALLY safe from all the things that might go wrong in life is to kill yourself right now! Then nothing out there can get you.