"Already it is clear that just the damages alone will amount to more than $100 billion," Louisa Vinton of the UN Development Programme told reporters via video link from Gaziantep in Turkey, adding that the recovery costs "will be on top of that".

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake on February 6 struck 11 Turkish provinces at 4:17am local time as people slept in homes not built to withstand powerful tremors killing over 45,000 people in Turkey and thousands more in neighbouring Syria.

Turkish officials said 214,000 buildings collapsed following the quake, many of them in Hatay and Kahramanmaras.

Teams of workers are still toiling to clear the rubble that now dominates quake-hit cities.

The World Health Organization called the quake the "worst natural disaster" in the European region for a century with estimates of 14 million people - one sixth of the country's population - affected by the disaster.

One month on, Turkey is facing the daunting task of rebuilding flattened cities, with tens of thousands buried and many survivors barely subsisting in tents or containers.

There has been mounting frustration at the government over its handling of the disaster. Opposition media and politicians blamed government institutions including the disaster agency for its slow response.

In some provinces, including Adiyaman, anger at the state remains strong. Survivors told AFP they had been left to save loved ones trapped under the rubble with their bare hands because there were no rescue teams, soldiers or police for days after the quake.

Some survivors recounted witnessing the death of their relatives because they weren't able to pull them from the rubble due to a lack of equipment needed to drill through slabs of concrete.

Erdogan conceded "shortcomings" and asked for "forgiveness" after criticism of his government's response.

"It's not possible to be ready for a disaster like this", he said during a visit to the quake region.

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