I've had very similar thoughts over the years, especially when dealing with second and third world countries, where at one point you might have been able to give them excuse of ignorance, but a lot of time and effort has been put into educating these people. When you still see them overpopulating in famine afflicted areas, rebuilding villages and towns right on top of fault lines and flood prone areas, and similar things, it becomes harder and harder to be sympathetic. Especially when in some cases if you dig you might find that X nation's ruling "government" just bought a bunch of military surplus from a nation like Russia and has been busy polishing it's 2-3 generation old tanks and MIG variants to bother constructing proper safeguards. The way I see things is if people are dying by the tens of thousands in preventable national disasters anyway, the people should be rebelling against their government, especially in nations where they can outnumber government troops hundreds to one, sure a lot of people might die, but eventually if they just keep coming the oppressive militaries will run out of bullets before the rebels run out of bodies (sort of like Zulus fighting British colonial troops, or Muslims overrunning the Foreign Legion). Beyond a certain point it takes a very "special" kind of people to keep letting this status quo exist and dying by the thousands anyway.
I've been sort of the heartless opinion that we should pretty much let Darwinism take it's course, every time the US and other countries come in and provide disaster relief and supplies to the same groups of people, we're perpetuating the cycle and propping up a broken system and ultimately just throwing resources into a toilet, addressing a problem that will never be solved, and of course encouraging the people we're helping to rely on us rather than stand on their own feet and deal with their own problems.
When it comes to the first world and other heavily developed nations, I have a little more sympathy because at least efforts have usually been made. When I look back at something like "Hurricaine Katrina" half the problem was the safeguards we put into place were not sufficient (and it actually surprised everyone), reasonable amounts of effort were however made, and people knew the risks. What's more it can be argued it was a bureaucratic failing when it came to FEMA as much as anything.
Unless of course you happen to intentionally move into an area where these problems are common, knowingly, and knowing there aren't any kinds of safeguards in place. For example when it comes to colonizing the floodplains and such I'd have to look at exactly what kind of countermeasures are being put into force there to justify this. If there aren't any reasonable justifications for it, then as far as I'm concerned people who choose to live there, know the risks, and I'm not going to be as sympathetic as I normally would.
This might sound pretty cruel and heartless, but understand that a lot of it comes from the simple fact that we have lots of problems, poverty, and starving people here in the USA, and 17 Trillion dollars in debt. It's nice to be a White Knight when you can afford it, heroism is a good thing. On the other hand the US can't afford it right now, so we need more "evil" pessimism from people like me, and people coming up with reasons "why not"... at least until we get our debt and other problems under control. After all when it comes to "sympathy from the US" and us running out to the rescue, we're actually borrowing money (since we run at a deficit, the ceiling of which was just raised again) in order to give charity to someone else, and honestly when it's the same people that keep overpopulating in their famine stricken areas, or keep building in areas they should know by now are not safe for habitation, I do not think we should be borrowing money in our name to cover their stupidity. Maybe Darwinism (as mentioned above) will do the job and eventually if enough people die from flooding or other disasters they will either turn on their government to provide safeguards (or establish a new one) or will simply decided to not keep living in places like that.
