Mumbai, Oct 16 (IANS): After remaining in the sub-200 range for three days, Maharashtra's Covid deaths suddenly doubled as the state's toll crossed the 41,000 mark, health officials said here on Thursday.

Compared to 158 fatalities on Wednesday, the state witnessed 337 deaths on Thursday, though lesser than the peak of 515 deaths reported on September 15, taking the state's death toll to 41,196.

The state also recorded 10,226 cases on Thursday, much lower than the peak single-day tally of 24,886 recorded on September 11), mounting Maharashtra's Covid tally to 15,64,615.

In a great relief, the state's recovery spiralled up for the eighth day - from 84.71 per cent to 85.04 per cent - while the current mortality rate remained at 2.63 per cent.

Against this, 13,714 fully recovered patients returned home - taking up the total number of discharged patients to 13,30,483 till date - much higher than the 192,459 active cases currently present in the state.

As per Thursday's figures, there was one death roughly every 4.2 minutes and 426 new cases added every hour to the state's tally.

Of the 337 deaths declared on Thursday, Pune edged to the top spot with 67 fatalities, followed by 46 in Mumbai, 40 in Sangli, 28 in Satara, 27 in Thane, 22 in Nagpur, 13 in Kolhapur, 11 in Chandrapur, 10 in Solapur, 8 in Nashik, 7 in Osmanabad, 6 each in Ahmednagar and Latur, 5 each in Raigad and Buldhana, 4 each in Palghar, Jalgaon and Wardha, 3 each in Nandurbar and Beed, 2 each in Akola, Yavatmal, Bhandara and Gondia, and 1 each in Aurangabad, Jalna, Nanded and Washim.

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the 14th day this month, Mumbai recorded 46 fatalities, as the city's toll shot up to 9,601, while the number of corona cases shot up by 2,119 to 236,721.

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 due to the contagion.

The MMR's fatalities shot up by 82 - taking the overall toll to 17,218 - and with another spike of 3,966 new cases, the total cases zoomed to 543,209.

With another 105 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll zoomed to 8,986, while the daily infections increased by 1,770 to 405,295 cases till now.

Nashik circle has so far recorded 4,060 deaths and 210,878 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 3,344 fatalities and 104,268 cases, and Nagpur circle's 3,017 deaths and 128,548 cases.

Latur circle recorded 1,834 deaths and 64,418 cases, Aurangabad circle had 1,472 fatalities and 58,046 cases, followed by Akola circle's 1,100 deaths and 48,078 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine decreased from 23,80,957 to 23,27,493 now, while the number of those in institutional quarantine went up from 23,176 to 23,183 on Thursday.