Mumbai, Sep 15 (IANS): Maharashtra on Tuesday catapulted to a new high of 515 Covid deaths, surpassing the previous jump of 495 deaths recorded five days ago (September 10), pulling up the state's toll above the 30K-mark, health officials said here.

Besides, the state also recorded 20,482 new cases, lower than the peak of 24,886 recorded on September 11, taking the state's Covid-19 tally to 10,97,856.

Adding a staggering 515 more fatalities, the state's death toll increased from 29,894 to 30,409 now.

There was one death roughly every 2.7 minutes and a whopping 853 new cases added every hour to the state tally.

The state's recovery rate improved for the second consecutive day -- from 70.16 per cent to 70.62 per cent -- while the current mortality rate stood at 2.77 per cent on Tuesday.

Against this, a new record high of 19,423 fully recovered patients returned home, taking the total number of discharged patients to 775,273 till date, much higher than the 291,797 active cases currently present in the state.

Of the 515 deaths, Nagpur led the state with 88 fatalities, followed by 60 in Thane, 50 in Pune, 49 each in Mumbai and Kolhapur, 38 in Sangli, 22 each in Ahmednagar and Jalgaon, 16 in Solapur, 14 in Raigad, 13 in Latur, 10 each in Palghar, Nashik and Aurangabad, 7 each in Satara, Beed and Gondia, 6 each in Nandurbar, Osmanabad, Nanded and Bhandara, 5 in Yavatmal, 2 each in Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri and Jalna, and 1 each in Akola, Amravati and Chandrapur.

The day witnessed a sharp spike in fatalities in Nagpur, Kolhapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar, Jalgaon and Solapur, even as 7 districts in the state reported zero deaths.

Restricted in the sub-50 range for the past 35 days, with 49 fatalities, Mumbai's death toll increased to 8,230 while the number of corona cases shot up by 1,586 to 173,596 now.

Of the total 8 circles, the Mumbai circle (MMR comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) remains on the brink as deaths spiral and cases pile up, with the fatalities shooting up by 133 to 14,263 and with another spike of 4,556 new infectees, the total cases shot up to 408,774.

Pune district's Covid cases touched 239,481 till date with the fatalities increasing from 4,838 a day earlier to 4,888 now.

Thane district on the third spot (after Pune and Mumbai) witnessed 160,683 cases while the death toll increased to 4,361.

With another 73 fatalities, Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll increased to 6,481 while the case tally zoomed up by 5,814 to 293,803.

Nashik circle recorded 2,983 fatalities and 141,597 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 2,053 deaths and 69,451 cases, and Nagpur circle's 1,625 deaths and 70,144 cases.

Latur circle edged out Aurangabad circle to climb to the 6th spot with 1,128 deaths and 41,484 cases, Aurangabad circle had 1,120 fatalities and 42,959 cases, followed by Akola division with 649 deaths and 28,527 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased considerably to 17,34,164, while the number of those under institutional quarantine went up to 37,225 on Tuesday.