What is the earth doing?

Anno ruinosa (catastrophic year) is how I would name this year of 2011. Only three months in and we have watched scenes of such heart wrenching destruction on our TV screens.
Queensland floods & cyclone, Victorian floods, Christchurch earthquake and now the horrendous Japanese earthquake and devastating tsunami.
The Japanese must rightly feel relieved that their building standards enabled Tokyo to survive the extreme 8.9 richter scale earthquake but would be devastated by the following tsunami and how it smashed so many lives and places to bits.
And now the nuclear incidents! As if they don't have enough to deal with.
Both New Zealand and Japan are on the Pacific plate which is subducting under other plates. Both places are part of the "Pacific ring of fire" which expects to have earthquakes and volcanos. But is it unusual to have such destructive effects as we have seen or just bad luck that both places are being affected?
Lets hope the rest of the year settles down and people can start rebuilding their shattered lives. My thoughts are with the Japanese people in their search and recovery efforts.