While sub disappearance transfixes some, many say their focus is on other calamities

People offer their support to Raja Yousaf, right, whose son Raja Sajid is missing after a shipwreck off the Greek coast, in Bindian village in Kotli, a district of Pakistan's administrator Kashmir, Sunday, June 18, 2023. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif declared a national day of mourning for citizens who died when the fishing trawler packed with migrants they were in sank off the Greek coast. (AP Photo/Nasir Mehmood)

The search for a submersible that disappeared while taking wealthy tourists to see the wreck of the Titanic has gripped many with its grim cinematic elements — a ticking clock, passengers running out of oxygen, and of course, the iconic ocean liner itself, which still captivates the public imagination more than a century after it sank.

In Pakistan, where two of the passengers were from, people flocked to social media with prayers and newspapers covered it heavily. But the outpouring fell far short of the shock and grief over a boat carrying hundreds of migrants that sank recently off the coast of Greece — many of them also from the South Asian country.

That story also struck a chord in other countries that the migrants left, many in the Middle East.