In the early hours of October 29, 2025, a seven-story apartment building in Gebze, a bustling district in Turkey’s northwestern Kocaeli province, crumbled to the ground, trapping a family of five beneath tons of concrete and steel. The collapse, which sent shockwaves through a community still haunted by memories of past disasters, left four members of the Bilir family dead and only one survivor, their eldest daughter. The tragedy has reignited urgent questions about building safety in one of the world’s most earthquake-prone regions, even as authorities scramble to determine what went wrong.
According to reporting by the Associated Press and the state-run TRT news channel, rescue teams rushed to the scene within minutes, deploying a massive operation that would eventually involve 627 personnel. The building, constructed in 2012, housed a pharmacy on the ground floor and several families above. But on this particular morning, it was the Bilir family—father Levent, 43; mother Emine, 37; daughter Hayrunnisa, 14; son Muhammed Emir, 12; and eldest sibling Dilara, 18—who bore the brunt of the disaster.
As heavy machinery clawed at the debris and rescue dogs sniffed through the wreckage, the grim toll became clear. By Wednesday evening, rescuers had pulled the bodies of Hayrunnisa and Muhammed Emir from the rubble, as reported by TRT. Miraculously, 18-year-old Dilara Bilir was found alive, her survival offering a rare glimmer of hope amid the devastation. The search for her parents continued into the night, with Deputy Interior Minister Mehmet Aktas confirming Thursday morning that the bodies of Levent and Emine had been recovered overnight.
The scene was both chaotic and heartbreakingly familiar. “As far as we know, it's a new building. I can't understand how it happened,” said Rabia Bilir, the sister of one of the trapped family members, expressing disbelief to Anadolu Agency. Her words echoed the confusion and frustration felt by many in Gebze, a city that sits just 65 kilometers southeast of Istanbul, along the Gulf of Izmit.
Authorities have yet to pinpoint the precise cause of the collapse. The state-run Anadolu Agency stated that the reason remained undetermined, but local officials have not been shy about offering theories. Gebze’s mayor, Zinnur Büyükgöz, suggested to local media that the disaster might be linked to the construction of a nearby metro system. “There may be a connection between the collapse and the metro construction,” he said, hinting at the complex interplay between rapid urban development and structural safety.
Rescue teams worked tirelessly, using not only heavy equipment but also eight underground search imaging devices and five rescue dogs, according to Anadolu. The operation was painstaking, with crews pausing frequently to listen for any signs of life beneath the rubble. At one point, a man’s voice was reportedly heard calling from the debris, a haunting reminder of the stakes involved.
The Bilir family’s tragedy is not an isolated incident. In January 2025, a four-story building in the central city of Konya collapsed, killing two people. In that case, shopkeepers who rented the ground floor are now facing trial, accused of dismantling supporting columns to create more space—a dangerous practice that, if proven, could lead to prison sentences of up to 22 years. The pattern is all too familiar in Turkey, where experts have long warned that the failure to enforce modern construction codes puts countless lives at risk, especially in earthquake-prone areas.
Gebze’s vulnerability is underscored by its location along the North Anatolian fault line, a major tectonic boundary responsible for some of Turkey’s deadliest earthquakes. The city was one of the main centers hit during the catastrophic 1999 magnitude 7.6 earthquake, which killed an estimated 18,000 people. Despite the lessons of that disaster, the enforcement of building standards remains inconsistent, and the rush to accommodate a growing urban population sometimes leads to shortcuts and oversights.
The building that collapsed this week was relatively new, having been completed just 13 years ago. Its modern appearance and recent construction date only deepened the shock for residents. “It’s hard to accept that something like this could happen to a building from 2012,” said one local, shaking his head as rescue workers continued their grim task.
Initial reports from Anadolu noted that the apartment block housed a pharmacy on the ground floor, a common arrangement in Turkish cities where commercial and residential spaces often coexist in the same structure. Several families lived in the apartments above, but it was the Bilir family who found themselves at the epicenter of this latest tragedy.
As the dust settled, attention quickly turned to the broader implications of the collapse. Experts interviewed by local media emphasized the urgent need for stricter enforcement of construction codes and more rigorous oversight of building practices. The memory of the 1999 earthquake looms large over Gebze, serving as a stark warning of what can happen when safety is compromised.
Authorities have promised a thorough investigation into the cause of the collapse, with both the possibility of structural failure and external factors such as metro construction under consideration. In the meantime, the community has rallied around the surviving member of the Bilir family, offering support and condolences as she faces a future forever altered by loss.
For many in Turkey, the events in Gebze are a painful reminder that progress and development must never come at the expense of safety. As rescue teams pack up their equipment and investigators begin their work, the hope is that lessons will be learned—and that tragedies like this one will become far less common in the years ahead.
The collapse of the Gebze apartment building stands as a somber testament to the ongoing challenges facing Turkey’s cities, where the push for modernization and growth must be balanced against the imperative to protect human life. For the Bilir family and their community, the cost of failure has been heartbreakingly high.
