By the government's own account, 40,000 homes will be ready by the end of November, leaving three months to finish nearly 280,000 more by February.

One senior government official with direct knowledge of the reconstruction plan said the target could be missed, citing insufficient fresh funding to hold new tenders amid rising costs. Another official also cited budget constraints and said new measures were needed to speed things up.

They both said the effort had taken a blow when fewer companies bid for the reconstruction tenders after a post-election economic policy U-turn in June sent the currency plunging.

The officials requested anonymity to speak freely.

Container homes which were sent from Qatar for earthquake survivors are seen at a container camp before its opening ceremony in Hatay, Turkey March 11, 2023.

In response to questions from Reuters, Erdoğan's office said construction was on schedule and in line with announced targets, saying work had started on 200,000 homes and "those completed will be delivered stage by stage in October, November and December."

"The disaster zone is the government's priority," it said, denying a slowdown in tenders, without providing numbers.

As of Aug. 6, construction was underway on 123,000 homes, according to a Reuters review of the most recent public ministry data, covering the six months from the earthquake.

The ministry data also showed construction had only started on 7% of almost 65,000 homes the government promised would be completed in Adıyaman province within two years of the quake.

Ufuk Bayır, secretary general of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) in Adıyaman said work had now started on more homes, but predicted just a few hundred will be delivered to Adıyaman residents by year end. TMMOB is aligned with Turkey's left-wing opposition.

"I see no possibility of all houses being delivered in a year," said Bayır, who is also a member Adıyaman's Provincial Coordination Council.

Kaplan, a retired court clerk, checks the official online housing portal regularly. The first response to his June application for a home came last month, saying his request was "being assessed", he said.

"We have nowhere else to stay and I don't know how we will survive the winter," Kaplan said.

Tens of thousands of buildings still await demolition across the disaster zone, and like Kaplan, many survivors remain in tents and container homes as winter approaches in a region where temperatures can drop below freezing.

Rattling an area the size of Netherlands and Belgium combined, the pre-dawn quake flattened entire towns and city centres in the textile- and agriculture-heavy southeast, killing more than 50,000 people.