Natural disaster

First New Zealand, second Japan, third ?. One time after the other our lovely planet Earth demonstrates is violent forces and causes a natural disaster, as we like to call it. And every time it will not be the last time. If one thing is for sure then it is the fact that we can not tame Earth's forces. We will always be exposed and vulnerable to earth quakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and the like. Yes, they are sad events but reading the news about Japan I also had two thoughts that might be a bit weird. 

The articles I read reported on three different nuclear power plants that were affected by the earth quake. Nuclear power plants! For what sane reason does a country like Japan have nuclear power plants? If the statistics are right, Japan receives 20% of the strongest earthquakes, that is a magnitude of 6.0 and up, on Earth. They experienced the devastating forces of nuclear power in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But they have nuclear power plants. Yes of course, one would think, how could they live without. Japan is a densely populated country that wants and needs energy independence, especially considering who their neighbouring countries are. Lots of people use lots of electricity and sun, wind and other renewable sources of energy have not made it big style yet in most countries. Hydro - I don't know much about Japan's rivers but a breaking dam seems less disastrous than a nuclear power plant breaking apart during an earthquake. When the infrastructure gets wrecked within minutes how would they want to deal with this kind of event? Currently, it sounds like the nuclear power plants are doing alright but how well can they be assessed under the circumstances? I was not too impressed either with the oil refineries. At least one of them has gone up in flames that reach 30 metres (90 feet) into the sky. Exactly what's needed now. They are not going to stop that from burning until the oil is gone. Lot's of oil wasted for nothing, lots of emissions for nothing but never mind most conventional oil comes from the unstable middle east where oil tends to burn for no good reason. At least nobody, like BP or Exxon, can be blamed because it's a catastrophe due to natural forces. Did somebody there think they were invincible?     
 
We are a damn selfish species. If a natural disaster occurs we always think about the people who got hurt, not about the nature, the flora and fauna. I suppose half of all human beings think that plants and animals don't have feelings to start with. But let's face there's no food without plants and animals. So why is there never a mentioning of roughly how many animals died, if a national park or other area of outstanding ecological importance was affected for example, or if just another species got wiped out. New Zealand has lots of endangered species that only live there and nowhere else. What if the last kiwi bird got killed in an earth quake, would anybody care when that same earth quake killed people? Unlikely. Might be because we harm our nature all the time already any way, so why would we care if nature "hurts" itself. No, I don't think our planet actually thinks about that and considers the consequences, it simply does not care, just like us.