Mumbai, Oct 13 (IANS): Maharashtra's daily Covid-19 deaths plummeted below the 200-mark for the second straight day on Tuesday -- and just the third time in five month -- even as Mumbai Metropolitan Region fatalities crossed the 17,000 mark, health officials said.

The state witnessed 187 fatalities on Tuesday, slightly higher than the 165 deaths on Monday and 178 on June 15, taking the toll to 40,701 now.

The state recorded another low of 8,522 cases on Tuesday, a day after 7,089 new infections on Monday, taking the state's tally to 15,43,837 cases.

In a great relief, the state recovery rose for the seventh day - from 83.49 per cent to 84.03 per cent - while the mortality rate remained stable at 2.64 per cent for the 10th day.

Meanwhile, 15,356 fully-recovered patients returned home - nearly double compared to fresh cases - taking up the total number of discharged patients from 12,81,896 to 12,97,252 so far, as against 205,415 active cases in the state.

As per Tuesday's figures, there was one death roughly every 7.7 minutes and 355 new cases added every hour to the state tally.

Of the 187 deaths, Mumbai continues to lead with 38 fatalities, while there were 20 deaths in Thane, and 19 each in Pune and Nagpur.

There were also nine deaths each in Satara and Chandrapur, eight in Solapur, seven each in Sangli and Latur, six in Bhandara, five each in Nashik and Beed, three each in Raigad, Jalgaon, Kolhapur, Osmanabad, and Amravati, two each in Ahmednagar, Nandurbar, Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri, Nanded, Yavatmal, and Wardha, and one each in Palghar, Dhule, Aurangabad, Buldhana, and Washim, besides one from out of the state.

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the 11th day this month, Mumbai saw the new deaths take its toll to 9,507 while the number of corona cases went up by 1,325 to 232,391 now.

Of the total 8 Circles, Mumbai circle (MMR) saw its 62 new fatalities take its toll beyond 17,000 to 17,060, while with 2,660 new infectees, the total cases zoomed up to 535,214.

With another 36 fatalities, the Pune circle's death toll rose to 8,848 and the daily infections increased by 1,828 to 401,395 cases.

Nashik circle recorded 4,028 deaths and 208,167 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle with 3,283 fatalities and 103,313 cases, Nagpur circle with 2,959 deaths and 125,519 cases, Latur circle with 1,811 deaths and 63,588 cases, Aurangabad circle with 1,465 fatalities and 57,384 cases, and Akola circle with 1,088 deaths and 47,432 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine again increased to 23,37,899, while the number of those in institutional quarantine went down to 25,857.