Did God punish Japan?

“And whatever misfortune befalls you, it is on account of what your hands have wrought and He pardons much.”
(The Holy Quran 42:30)

In the wake of the disaster in Japan people are asking why did Allah allow such things to happen. The answer is that He does not. He has created laws according to which the world runs and He does not interfere in the operation of those laws.

He gave human beings intelligence to decide the consequences of their actions. So it is not Allah who is responsible for these things but humans beings themselves. We now know that the automatic gates which were supposed to close to stop the water from coming were faulty. It was known that these gates are faulty but nothing was done to repair them. When the tsunami struck firemen tried to close the gates manually and 5 of them were washed away to sea. Was it Allah’s fault that the gates did not close or human negligence.?

Similarly, Allah did not put nuclear reactors on a fault line, humans did. Unless we take responsibility for our own action we will not be able to avoid future disasters. As Allah asks in the Holy Quran that when something good happens humans do not attribute it to Allah but when something bad happens they always blame Allah, why is that?