By Selin Tekin, Özden Melis Uluğ and Arda Bilgen
Dedicated to the memory of Mert Doğan, Duygu Doğan, Mavi Doğan and Doğa Doğan
On January 21, 2025, a fire at the Grand Kartal Hotel in Kartalkaya, Turkey, killed 78 people, including at least 36 children, and wounded another 51. Despite being one of the main ski stations in the region, investigations revealed serious fire safety rapes. The hotel lacked essential protections such as an automatic alarm, a system of sprinklers, smoke detectors that work and illuminated emergency exits. The area did not have a dedicated fire department, and the closest units, almost an hour in Bolu, fought to reach the scene due to the hard winter conditions, allowing the fire to be burned without control for approximately 12 hours.
Then, a fierce dispute over responsibility broke out among local municipalities, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Ministry of Interior and other government agencies. The authorities imposed a temporary prohibition of the media and declared a day of mourning. Days later, 31 people were arrested, 22 arrested, while a special parliamentary commission launched an investigation. Despite the public protest of fire security and systemic application failures, no person or entity has the public responsibility of tasks or issued an apology.
We argue that the Fire Kartalkaya 2025 and the Fire Grenfell 2017 in London, one of the most mortal residential fires in modern British history, share similarities in negligence but differ in the collective action after disaster and the public response. We explore how Grenfell’s lessons can inform the strategies after Türkiye’s disaster, the prevention of future failures, mitigate their impact and help survivors achieve justice.
Similar disaster patterns
The 2017 Grenfell Fire charged 72 lives and displaced hundreds. Like the Kartalkaya fire, it was not a mere accident, but a preventable disaster rooted in systemic failures: building safety regulations, inadequate application and poor emergency preparation.
Both Grand Kartal Hotel and the Grenfell Tower lacked critical fire safety systems and clear evacuation procedures. In the Botos, the weak application of the construction laws allowed insecure buildings to operate without adequate precautions. Poor design, highly flammable materials (wood exterior in Kartalkaya and aluminum compound coatings in Grenfell, and the lack of emergency preparation made it difficult Desperate escape attempts, while others tragically jumped to their death.
Althegh at different degrees, both disasters caused public outrage, demanding more strict fire security policies, legal responsibility and justice for victims. The survivors and their communities mobilized through collective action, participating in legal battles, protests and campaigns promoted by policies. These movements were not only expressions of complaint and solidarity, but strategic efforts to challenge institutional failures and boost systemic reform. By forming collective identities, affected people transformed their personal tragedy struggles into broader struggles for justice and structural change.
Different disaster responses
The responses to the fires of Kartalkaya and Grenfell, particularly how survivors and supporters mobilized by justice, were divided due to different social, political and regulatory contexts. In the scenarios after disaster, shared social identity can empower people, changing them from the victim to the agency. In Grenfell, affected communities framed fire as an injustice of prevention, strengthening their resolution to demand legislative reforms, transparency and justice. First, the activists pressed for a public investigation in 2017, ensuring that the survivors had a voice and a growing scrutiny of corporate and governmental responsibilities. Second, their efforts led to fire security reforms throughout the United Kingdom, including the building’s security law (2022) and the Fire Safety Law (2021), which imposed stricter regulations and responsibility. Third, they pressed the government to ban the fuel lining and eliminate insecure materials of thousands of buildings. Fourth, the sustained defense assured enlarged housing and mental health services for survivors. Activists continue to press for full justice, including the criminal prosecutions of those responsible.
In contrast, structural and socio -political restrictions limit mobilization after Kartalkaya’s fire. Unlike the long -standing residential community of Grenfell, the victims of Kartalkayas were hotel guests from different cities, without pre -existing social ties. This absence of unity may have accumulated supported protests or legal defense efforts such as Grenfell’s silent walk.
The restricted civic space of Türkiye marked by limitations of protest, censorship and mobilization on a negligible scale of political risks. The country also lacks strong housing rights and legal defense networks comparable to those who support Grenfell survivors. Besides, Limited Press Freedom restricted public awareness, collective tissue complaints and justice demands. Moreover, some social media users framed Kartalkaya as a problem of destiny than a preventable disaster, further depoliticization of the problem. Unlike Grenfell, where Onsking activism maintained media attention, Kartalkaya’s coverage faded rapidly, suffocating public debate and collective action.
Finally, the absence of transparent legal routes for action weakened mobilization. Grenfell’s public research process proved survivors with a formal mechanism to press for responsibility, maintaining the impulse. Kartalkaya, on the other hand, lacked an equivalent independent investigation, without skepticism about achieving justice through collective action.
Conclusion
Despite happening in different contexts, Kartalkaya and Grenfell fires reveal the devastating consequences of inadequate fire safety, regulatory failures and lack of disasters. Although both caused public protests, the scale and persistence of collective action differed, made up of broader social, political and institutional structures. Grenfell became a catalyst for sustained activism, highlighting the inequality of housing and the negligence of the government in the United Kingdom. In contrast, Kartalkaya has not caused the same level of mobilization in Türkiye. This disparity underlines the role of civic participation, activist networks, cultural attitudes towards the responsibility and ability of affected communities to demand justice.
Disasters are political and prevention. Without a reform, similar tragedies will persist, partly where supervision, regulation and community preparation remain weak. Collective action: when it is based on a strong mobilization and persistent defense, it maintains systemic injustices in the center of public and political care, promoting policy change.
