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The number of dead from a New Year's Eve gas explosion in a Russian apartment block jumped to 39 on Thursday as rescuers finished searching for bodies in the rubble of the partially collapsed building, AFP reports.

Russian official Alexandre Tchouprian said that 38 of the 39 bodies had been identified and no more were expected to be found at the site in the Ural mountains city of Magnitogorsk.

"The emergency services have nothing more to do here -- the work is finished," Tchouprian was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Nearly 900 people involved in rescue and recovery efforts braved temperatures as low as minus 27 degrees Celsius (minus 16 degrees Fahrenheit) to search through mangled concrete and metal at the site.

Six people including two children were rescued at the site, but no survivors have been found since Tuesday when a 10-month-old boy was retrieved in what officials described as a "New Year's miracle".

The explosion tore through the 10-storey building in the industrial city nearly 1,700 kilometres (1,050 miles) east of Moscow in the early hours of Monday.

The Soviet-era block was home to about 1,100 people and the explosion destroyed 35 apartments, leaving dozens homeless.

A bridge had been built to reach higher areas and one of the building's walls was taken down as it was threatening to collapse on rescue workers.