Mumbai, Apr 21 (IANS): Maharashtra witnessed a new record figure of Covid-19 deaths even as the case tally crossed the staggering 4 million-mark on Wednesday along with a spike in the number of active cases, health officials said.

The state's fatalities jumped from the previous peak of 519 (April 20) to a new high of 568 on Wednesday, taking the state's overall death toll to 61,911, the worst in the country.

Dropping a little from the record high of 68,631 new cases notched on April 18, the state on Wednesday reported 67,468 fresh cases, taking its tally to 40,27,827 till date.

The situation worsened in Mumbai with a spike in new infections from 7,192 on Tuesday to 7,654, as the city's tally shot above the 6 lakh-mark to 601,713 till date, 17 days after it touched the highest single-day spike of 11,206 cases on April 4.

The number of fatalities in Mumbai zoomed to 62 on Wednesday, taking its overall death toll to 12,508, the highest for a single city in the country.

On a brighter note, a total of 54,985 fully cured persons returned home, taking the total number of recoveries in the state to 32,68,449, with the recovery rate slightly improving from 81.14 per cent on Tuesday to 81.15 per cent now.

The death rate again dropped from 1.55 per cent a day earlier to 1.54 per cent now, while the number of active cases in the state increased to 695,747.

The Mumbai Circle - comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts - reported 16,491 new cases on Wednesday, which is considerably lower than the peak of 19,953 (April 11), mounting its overall tally to 12,52,334, while 150 deaths in the past 24 hours took its death toll to 22,057.

Of the day's 568 total fatalities, Mumbai led the chart with 62 fatalities, followed by 51 in Raigad, 41 in Nagpur, 37 in Thane, 35 in Pune, 29 each in Nashik and Ahmednagar, 24 each in Nandurbar and Satara, 23 in Bhandara, 20 in Latur, 18 in Chandrapur, 17 each in Aurangabad and Osmanabad, 16 each in Jalgaon and Amravati, 13 in Nanded, 12 each in Sangli and Beed, 11 in Kolhapur, and 10 each in Sindhudurg and Buldhana -- in the higher range.

There were 9 deaths in Solapur, 8 in Akola, 7 each in Parbhani and Gondia, 5 in Wardha, 4 in Washim, and 1 Ratnagiri -- in the lower range.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home isolation increased from 38,76,998 to 39,15,292 now, while those shunted to institutional quarantine went up from 27,690 to 28,384 on Wednesday.