Istanbul: As the people of Turkey’s once prosperous south-east waited for help in the rubble of their homes after last month’s earthquake, one question kept coming up: “Where is the government?”

The disaster on February 6 killed nearly 45,000 in Turkey alone, left millions homeless across an area almost as large as Germany. Adding victims in Syria, the death toll has surpassed 50,000.

In the days and weeks that have followed, fury at the Turkish government and the lack of properly enforced building regulations has spread well beyond the earthquake zone and increasingly focused on Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the strongman president.

Fans of the country’s two major football clubs – including the president’s favourite team – chanted “Erdogan Resign!” at games in Istanbul last weekend. The two teams have since been ordered to play to empty stands, but the scale of the anger in the population is clear.

With elections in May, Erdogan appears worried. This week, while visiting the city of Adiyaman, he hugged children, stopped to listen to tearful old ladies, and even asked for “helallik”, an Islamic term loosely meaning “forgive and forget”.

The earthquake has exposed his government’s fatal failings, and with many seeking to hold him personally culpable, he is facing the most serious challenge to his grip on Turkey yet.

“Erdogan is responsible for this disaster because he wanted to be responsible for everything in this country,” said Sera Kadigil, an Istanbul MP from the Workers’ Party, who is coordinating volunteer efforts in the badly affected region of Hatay.

She is not alone: every prominent opposition politician has sought to pin the disaster on Erdogan personally.