Hi Ruby,
My wife and I went to Marrakech last year. Two hours after arriving at the hotel we were exploring the area around the hotel where many people live on the streets. We saw a man sitting against a wall with his eyes blankly staring and it was obvious he was dead. The locals were walking up to him, chatting to each other, looking closely, and then just walking away. In the end that's all we could do. My wife and I felt shocked - but then we just walked away too.
When we got home we spoke to a friend who's a vicar and asked him what we should have done. He said there was nothing we could have done as we had just arrived and many local Moroccans had seen the man. He said it's their culture and they know exactly how to deal with those situations. We agreed and he was right.
With regard to the events in Italy, people probably felt the same. What could anyone have done above what was already being done by the locals? Packing up and leaving the beach wouldn't have made any difference. Going home wouldn't have changed anything. There are 4,500 deaths on UK roads every year and all of us have seen the flowers and crosses beside the roads. But it doesn't stop any of us driving cars and we just drive past the flowers without another thought. It does sound callous at first but in those situations there isn't anything to do.
I think the old chestnut about TV and film violence has a lot to do with callousness in society. The average US teenager sees 17,000 fictional and non-fictional deads and murders by the time they are 16. After WWII everyone was shocked by the films taken in the concentration camps as no one had seen anything like it. Yet when those same films appear on TV now people hardly bat an eyelid. TV does harden people and society in general.