Mumbai, Jul 31 (IANS): Maharashtra's new Covid-19 cases breached the 10,000-level for the third time in July on Friday while Pune's total cases shot past the 1 lakh mark.

Besides, the number of active cases in the state zoomed above 1.50 lakh of which the lion's share belongs to Pune and Thane, with Mumbai trailing a distant third, health officials said.

The state recorded its third highest spike in new cases - at 10,320, down from the July 30 peak of 11,147, besides 265 deaths.

The death toll has now gone up to 14,994, while the total cases rose to 422,118 - both highest in the country.

According to Friday's figures, there was one death roughly every 5 minutes and a stupendous 430 new cases every hour.

The state recovery rate increased for the sixth consecutive day, from 60.37 per cent to 60.68 per cent on Friday, while the current mortality rate stood at 3.55 per cent.

The Health Department said that of the total cases till date, 150,662 are active.

A total of 7,543 recovered patients returned home on Friday - the highest till date - taking the total number of discharged patients to 256,158.

Of the active cases, Pune tops the chart with 49,821, followed by Thane's 31,920 and Mumbai's 20,563.

Of the total 265 fatalities, Pune notched 71 deaths to push back both Thane (60) and Mumbai for the second day running.

Mumbai remained stable with 53 deaths for the second day, to take up its toll to 6,353 and the number of cases increased by 1,085 to 114,284 now.

There were 10 deaths each in Raigad and Kolhapur, eight in Solapur, seven in Nanded, six each in Nashik and Buldhana, five each in Palghar and Sangli, four in Aurangabad, three each in Jalgaon, Latur, and Nagpur, two each in Parbhani and Osmanabad, and one each in Ahmednagar, Dhule, Ratnagiri, Jalna, Beed, Akola, and Amravati.

The MMR (Thane division) saw its toll shooting up by 128 to 9,638, while a staggering 3,361 new cases took its tally to 239,783.

Thane's cases have reached 93,342 with 2,585 fatalities to make it the state's second worst-hit district after Mumbai.

Pune district has 89,231 cases, with the death toll increasing to 2,099 on Friday.

With 79 more fatalities, the Pune division's toll has reached 2,741 and the case tally zoomed past the one lakh mark to 102,232.

Nashik division has recorded 1,173 fatalities and 34,006 cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 592 deaths and 17,029 cases, Akola division with 253 fatalities and 7,444 cases, Kolhapur division with 237 deaths and 9,473 cases, Latur division with 229 fatalities and 5,490 cases, and Nagpur division with 83 deaths and 6,263 cases - the only division now in the sub-100 death figure range.

All the eight divisions recorded fatalities, while Chandrapur was still a zero Covid death district.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine stands at 899,557 now, while those in institutional quarantine total 39,535.