The Chofetz Chaim said about a earthquake in Asia, that it is a chisaron in emunah not to understand that this is a message for Klal Yisroel.
Apparently in this generation we are not getting the message and thus we have to get the instantaneous messages from anywhere in the world about tragedies that we can identify with, in order to get a message.
And these are tragedies because times have changes and these terrible occurrences are out of the realm of our regular thinking.