Mumbai, Jul 11 (IANS): Maharashtra's Covid-19 death toll crossed 10,000 on Saturday while new cases shot above the 8,000 mark for the first time, with the state's tally now higher than Italy and Pakistan, officials said.

Maharashtra recorded a fresh surge of 8,139 new Covid cases on Saturday, a significant increase from Friday's 7,862 cases, the third spurt above 7,000 in the past 10 days.

The number of fatalities were 223, taking the death toll to 10,116 and the total cases zoomed up to 246,600 till date, both being the highest in the country.

Maharashtra's case tally has thus soared over Italy (242,639) and Pakistan (246,351), ranking 13 and 12, respectively, on the Worldometer.

Saturday's figures work out to one death recorded roughly every 6 minutes and a stupendous 339 new cases notched every hour in the state.

Against this, the recovery rate in the state dropped marginally from 55.62 per cent on Friday to 55.55 per cent, while the mortality rate stood at 4.01 per cent.

The Health Department said of the total number of cases declared till date, 99,202 are active cases.

Meanwhile, 4,360 fully cured patients returned home, taking the number of those discharged to 136,985.

Of Saturday's deaths, Mumbai accounted for 39 deaths, pulling up the city toll to 5,244 now, while its number of Covid-19 positive patients shot up by 1,284 cases to touch 91,745.

For the third time this month, Thane, with 62 deaths, overtook Mumbai.

There were also 34 fatalities in Pune, 17 in Jalgaon, 13 in Nashik, nine each in Palghar and Aurangabad, eight in Jalna, seven in Solapur, six in Raigad, four in Satara, three in Latur, two each in Kolhapur, Nanded, Nagpur and Amravati, and one each in Dhule, and Sangli. Two were from other states.

While Dharavi's fight over the pandemic won acknowledgement from the WHO, BMC Assistant Municipal Commissioner Ashok Khairna, 57, lost his battle to Covid-19, making him the 102nd civic official claimed by the virus so far.

In the first such instance, the Mira Road Police (Thane) nabbed two pharmacists - Sonu Darshi and Rodriques Raul - for allegedly selling Remdesivir injections at four times the MRP, following a trap laid by social worker Binu Verghese, said Senior Police Inspector Sandeep Kadam.

The MMR (Thane division) remains on edge as deaths spiral and cases pile up, with the current toll at 7,179 and a staggering 4,410 new patients, pushing up the number of cases to 168,585.

Thane cases have touched 59,487 with 1,598 fatalities - to emerge as the second worst-hit district after Mumbai in the state.

Pune district continues to leap ahead by notching 37,356 patients and while the deaths increased to 1,060 till now.

The Pune division, which has recorded 1,469 deaths and 42,690 patients, remains behind MMR and Thane district.

Nashik division has 730 fatalities and 14,990 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad division with 383 deaths and 9,424 cases, and Akola division with 161 fatalities and 3,601 cases.

Kolhapur division has notched 68 deaths and 2,788 patients, Latur division 71 fatalities and 1,719 cases, and finally Nagpur division recorded 25 deaths and 2,620 cases.

All the eight divisions in the state have recorded fatalities on Saturday, but Chandrapur and Bhandara remain the only two districts (out of total 36) with zero Covid deaths so far, though all have notched fresh cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased to 680,017 now, while those in institutional quarantine went up to 47,376.