Is nature a force for good or evil in Candide?

In the novel Candide by Voltaire, nature is used primarily as a force of evil and destruction. Voltaire is making a pointed religious commentary throughout the novel, as well as drawing on a very real and recent experience.
To argue against the prevalent religious idea of Optimism, which was at the time making the rounds in France and the Iberian Peninsula as one of the most popular Christian ideas, Voltaire chose to show an incredibly pessimistic world. The idea of Optimism is that everything works out for the best in the end because God is good and that troubles and afflictions, particularly for Christians, are typically light and temporary. However, in 1755, a few years prior to the publication of this book, an earthquake hit Lisbon, followed by a tsunami and massive fires, all of which took place on All Saints Day. This crippled the idea of Optimism and made many question their faith because it was so tragic.
Voltaire chose to draw on these events in the book to show a terrible world full of evil. He uses, in fact, a very similar sequence of events, incorporating first a horrific storm that capsizes the protagonist’s boat, which he barely survives. Soon after his arrival in Lisbon, just as in real life, an earthquake struck, followed quickly be a tsunami and fires. Nature is used in this way to beat down Candide, making his life more difficult and miserable. Clearly it is being used as a force of evil to torment and punish the main character and to show that the world is not a good place, let alone the “best of all possible worlds”.
This natural world in which Candide lives seems to be bent on frustrating and attacking him, which is more pessimistic than reality. However, Voltaire is attempting to show that, far from being the best possible environment, the world does its best to torment and harm humanity, meaning it is not a good and benevolent place and, in his eyes, there can’t be a good and benevolent God.