Mumbai, Aug 12 (IANS): After a brief lull, Maharashtra's Covid-19 deaths and cases soared again into thee higher ranges with the Mumbai region seeing a jumping of 1,000 deaths in just eight days, but simultaneously, recoveries have also improved, health officials said on Wednesday.

The state notched 344 Covid deaths, and recorded 12,712 new cases, the second highest after the August 8 peak of 12,822.

The death toll rose to 18,650, while the total number of cases went up to 548,313 - both highest in the country.

According to Wednesday's figures, there was one death roughly every 4 minutes and a staggering 530 new cases every hour.

The recovery rate went up from 68.79 per cent to 69.64 per cent on Wednesday, while the mortality rate stood at 3.04 per cent.

Also, a total of 13,408 recovered patients returned home, taking the total number of discharged patients to 381,843 till date.

Of the fresh fatalities, Mumbai again topped with 50 deaths, followed by 41 in Pune and 33 in Thane.

Besides, there were 29 deaths in Nagpur, 28 deaths in Nashik, 19 in Kolhapur, 16 each in Jalgaon and Latur, 14 in Sangli, 13 in Palghar, 11 in Solapur, and 10 in Nanded.

There were also eight fatalities in Satara, seven each in Parbhani and Osmanabad, six in Ahmednagar, four each in Nandurbar and Amravati, three each in Raigad, Dhule, Aurangabad, and Jalna, two each in Ratnagiri, Beed, Akola, and Gondiya, one each in Hingoli, Yavatmal, Buldhana, Washim, Bhandara, and Chandrapur, besides two from other states.

Mumbai's toll has increased to 6,943 and the number of cases increased by 1,132 to 126,356 now.

The MMR (Thane division) has seen its toll shooting up by 99 to 11,061, while a fresh 3,470 new cases pushed up the total to 275,574 now.

Pune district's cases now total 119,628, with the death toll increasing to 2,865, while Thane district had 108,399 cases with 3,125 fatalities, as on Wednesday.

With 60 more fatalities, the Pune division's death toll touched 3,656 and the case tally zoomed up with 3,632 new cases to 139,693.

Nashik division has recorded 1,553 fatalities and 54,753 cases, followed by Aurangabad division with 722 deaths and 22,081 cases, and Kolhapur division with 534 fatalities and 19,296 cases.

Latur division has 408 fatalities and 12,967 cases, Akola division 342 fatalities and 11,061 cases, and Nagpur division 316 deaths and 13,323 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased to 10,15,115 now, while those in institutional quarantine rose to 35,880.