Yeah, it’s sad. But I find it utterly fucking baffling the amount of airtime, column inches (and now the - what - 4th or 5th? - MN thread) that’s been dedicated to the deaths of 2 exceedingly privileged thrill tourists, one poor kid who got dragged along by his dad, an expert who understood the risk he was being paid to take and the bloke who basically shilled them all out of their money and their lives.
Not to mention the huge coordinated international rescue attempts and 24/7 rolling commentary giving us minute-by-minute updates on the possible whereabouts of this one tiny, shonky, unfit-for-purpose sub that was basically engaged in a ghoulish inspection of a mass grave site (which has already been extensively photographed and documented for the benefit of anyone who’s interested).
This was not a ‘tragedy’. It was a totally unnecessary, utterly avoidable and highly predictable accident. And if the reporting is accurate, their deaths were instantaneous.
It’s not virtue signalling or blunt reductiveness to compare it to the coverage of, and international response to, the sinking of migrant boats contains tens or even hundreds of desperate people. People who have given everything they have (though probably not a quarter of a million quid each) to bring their children on board equally shonky vessels, not for shits and giggles but because they have run out of options. People who don’t get vaporised in a heartbeat, but drown or freeze in terror and watch their loved ones doing the same. There’s rarely been such a stark demonstration in the media of the relative value placed on lives.
Sorry if this is sitting with you, OP, and yes, it’s a horrible accident, but in the wider context it feels like a pretty strange thing to be dwelling on.