Istanbul: Turkey has ended rescue efforts in all provinces except the two hardest hit by last week's massive quake that killed tens of thousands of people, the Turkish disaster agency said Sunday.

"In many of our provinces, search and rescue efforts have been completed. They continue in Kahramanmaras and Hatay provinces," the agency's chief Yunus Sezer told reporters in Ankara. The epicentre of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake on February 6 was in Kahramanmaras.

The death toll on Saturday rose to more than 44,000 from the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria with the body of former Ghana international footballer Christian Atsu also found beneath a collapsed building in Antakya.

The numbers of people found alive under the rubble have dropped to only a handful in recent days and the head of Turkey's disaster agency, Yunus Sezer, said rescue operations would be "largely completed" by Sunday night.