[4gotunameagain]

The parent comment already made the connection to the thai kids cave, whose story went around the world. So this part does not play a role about the sensationalism of the story. About the magnitude of the search and rescue effort.. It might do

[silisili]

well sure, that was kids. We only remember that kids were trapped, barely if at all the adults involved.

If that cave was just full of random divers, we'd probably not heard of that one either.

[evgen]

And the Chilean miners trapped for a couple of months back in 2010? The fact that all I need to do to remind you of the event is mention 'Chilean miners' should be sufficient evidence to prove an exception to your proposed rule.

[silisili]

I'll half concede, fair point.

It was a lot of people (more than 30), and IMO wasn't covered as heavily as say, the Thai cave or this may be.

There is definitely a disaster angle news latch onto, but it's pretty rare for a group of adults this small. There are small plane crashes with more fatalities multiple times a year...

And it can't be the 'missing people' angle, there are like 400k kids every year reported missing with less than milk carton coverage...

[numpad0]

The urgency tickles our savior complex. The situation makes us feel that we might be able to save those souls if only we could figure out the correct bash one-liner to solve it, and that grabs our collective attention.

[Jcowell]

this seems so weird to me since the majority of the planet isn’t doing anything to save these people.

[ycombobreaker]

I agree with your points. But just imagine the news cycle if the Chilean miners _were_ children!