Mumbai, Oct 19 (IANS): Maharashtra's Covid-19 tally crossed the 16 lakh mark even as deaths and new cases continued to plummet, health officials said here on Monday,

The state witnessed 125 deaths on Monday -- around 25 per cent compared to the peak of 515 deaths reported on September 15 -- taking the state's death toll to 42,240.

The state reported 5,984 new cases in the last 24 hours -- around 25 per cent lower than the peak single-day tally of 24,886 reported on September 11 -- taking the state's Covid tally past the 16 lakh mark to 16,01,365.

Covid-19 cases and fatalities in Maharashtra are among the lowest in the past nearly four months, proving a great relief to the health authorities.

On another positive, the state's recovery rate continued to soar, increasing from 85.86 per cent to 86.48 per cent - while the current mortality rate remained stable at 2.64 per cent.

Simultaneously, 15,069 fully recovered patients returned home - taking up the total number of discharged patients to 13,84,879 till date - much higher than the 173,759 active cases currently present in the state.

As per Monday's figures, there was one death roughly every 11.5 minutes and 249 new cases added every hour to the state's tally.

Of the 125 deaths reported on Monday, Mumbai had one-third share at 43 fatalities, followed by Pune (15), Thane (14), Solapur (7), Amravati and Nagpur (6 each), Jalna (5), Ahmednagar, Sangli and Nanded (4 each), Kolhapur (3), Raigad, Nashik and Satara (2 each), and Palghar, Jalgaon, Ratnagiri, Aurangabad, Akola, Yavatmal, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli (1 each).

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the 18th day this month, Mumbai recorded 43 fatalities, taking the city's toll to 9,819, while the number of cases shot up by 1,234 -- the highest in the state for the day -- to 143,169.

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

MMR's fatalities shot up by 60 to 17,331, while 2,405 new cases took the circle's Covid tally to 555,786.

With another 24 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll zoomed to 9,213, while daily infections increased by the lowest in recent weeks - 895 - to 410,630.

Nashik circle has so far recorded 4,100 deaths and 214,394 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 3,515 fatalities and 105,645 cases, and Nagpur circle's 3,346 deaths and 137,676 cases.

Latur circle has recorded 1,909 deaths and 65,757 cases, Aurangabad circle has 1,515 fatalities and 59,645 cases, followed by Akola circle's 1,173 deaths and 49,835 cases.

The number of people sent to home quarantine increased from 24,12,921 to 24,14,577 now, while the number of those in institutional quarantine went down from 23,384 to 23,285 on Monday.