Mumbai, Oct 10 (IANS): Maharashtra's Covid-19 deaths breached the 40,000-mark a day after the state's case tally crossed 1.5 million, health officials said here on Saturday.

The state witnessed another 308 fatalities - lower than the peak of 515 - and the toll catapulted from 39,732 to 40,040 now.

The state recorded another 11,416 new infections - lesser than the peak single-day tally of 24,886 - and the state total zoomed from 15,06,018 to 15,17,434 cases till date.

In some relief, the state recovery rate also went up for the fifth day - from 81.63 per cent to 82.76 per cent - while the current mortality (death) rate remained stable at 2.64 per cent for the entire week.

Against this, a high of 26,440 fully recovered patients returned home taking up the total number of discharged patients shot up from 12,29,339 to 12,55,779 till date - much higher than the 221,156 'active cases' (ill) currently in the state.

As per Saturday's figures, there was one death roughly every 4.6 minutes and 476 new cases added every hour to the state tally.

Of the 308 deaths, Mumbai led the state with 48 fatalities, 46 in Pune, 26 in Satara, 24 in Ahmednagar, 22 in Solapur, 18 each in Thane and Nagpur, 16 in Nashik, 10 in Sangli - in the higher bracket.

There were 8 fatalities in Beed, 7 each in Raigad, Osmanabad and Chandrapur, 6 each in Jalgaon and Amravati, 5 in Latur, 4 each in Palghar and Washim, Ratnagiri, Aurangabad and Bhandara, 3 in Gondia, 2 each in Sindhudurg, Nanded and Yavatmal, 1 each in Dhule, Kolhapur, Jalna, Akola and Wardha - in the lower bracket.

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the ninth day this month, Mumbai recorded 48 fatalities, and the city toll shot up from 9,343 to 9,391 while the number of corona cases shot up by 2,203 and the city total zoomed from 225,073 to 227,276 now.

Of the total 8 Circles, Mumbai circle (MMR - comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) remains on the brink as deaths spiral and cases pile up due to the contagion.

The MMR fatalities shot up by 77 - taking the toll from 16,760 to 16,837 and with another spike of 4,203 new infectees, the total cases zoomed up from 521,070 the previous day to 525,273 now.

With another 94 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll zoomed from 8,628 to 8,722 and the daily infections increased by 2,467 - from 393,387 a day earlier to 395,854 cases now.

Nashik circle recorded 3,982 fatalities and 204,585 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 3,192 deaths and 102,015 cases, and Nagpur circle recorded 2,866 deaths and 122,353 cases.

Latur circle recorded 1,764 deaths and 62,465 cases, Aurangabad circle had 1,455 fatalities and 56,467 cases, followed by Akola circle's 1,068 deaths and 46,652 cases now.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine decreased - from 23,00,588 to 22,68,057 now - while the number of those in institutional quarantine went up from 24,972 to 24,994 on Saturday.