[arien]

We're most likely to care about what is/feels closer to us, what we can relate to, what we know. You'd feel more if your neighbour whom you greet every day on the foyer died in a car crash that if it were a random person you didn't know at all, right? It's the same principle.

I also think that there is not just empathy at play, but fear. Because the closer an event is to us or the people we know/relate to, the more we realise it could also happen to us.