Mumbai, Aug 3 (IANS): Maharashtra continued to record a high daily Covid toll with 266 deaths on Monday, including a sudden shooting up of fatalities in the state's second capital Nagpur, even as the recovery rate improved further, health officials said.

The state has recorded 8,968 new Covid cases, taking its tally to 450,196 and the death toll has risen to 15,842 - both highest in the country.

Monday's figures amounted to a death roughly every 6 minutes and a stupendous 374 new cases every hour.

The recovery rate increased for the seventh consecutive day, rising from 62.74 per cent to 63.76 per cent on Monday, while the current mortality rate stood at 3.52 per cent.

The Health Department said that of the total cases till date, 147,018 are active.

As many as 10,221 recovered patients returned home on Monday, taking the total number of discharged patients to 287,030.

Of the total fatalities, Pune again notched the highest deaths, at 60, but Nagpur, with 50, abruptly shot up to the second position, pushing behind the traditional hotspot of Mumbai.

Mumbai's deaths, meanwhile, declined to the sub-50 range for the fourth time in a week and with 46 fatalities, the city toll increased to 6,493 and the number of corona cases went up by 970 to touch 117,406 now.

There were also 29 deaths in Thane, nine each in Kolhapur and Sangli, seven in Latur, six each in Nashik and Jalgaon, five each in Raigad, Solapur and Nanded, four in Nandurbar, three each in Palghar and Aurangabad, 2 each in Ahmednagar, Ratnagiri, Akola, Yavatmal, and Amravati, and one each in Dhule, Satara, Jalna, Osmanabad, Beed, and Washim, besides three from other states.

The MMR (Thane division) saw its toll shooting up by 83 to 9,970, while 2,957 new cases took its tally to 249,111.

Thane district cases have reached 97,343 with 2,703 fatalities to make it the state's worst-hit district after Mumbai.

Pune district now has 96,669 cases, with the death toll increasing to 2,286.

With 66 more fatalities, the Pune division's death toll has reached 2,965 and the case tally zoomed up with 2,185 new cases to reach 110,924.

Nashik division has recorded 1,255 fatalities and 37,679 cases so far, Aurangabad division 625 deaths and 17,827 cases, Akola division 280 fatalities and 8,189 cases, Kolhapur division 284 deaths and 11,835 cases, Latur division 273 fatalities and 6,803 cases, and Nagpur division, which has so far less than 100 deaths, seeing its toll rise to 138 while the number of cases is 7,401 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased to 940,486, while those in institutional quarantine went down to 37,009.