India\'s COVID-19 nightmare continues with addition of 2,000 deaths in single day

India's COVID-19 nightmare continued on Tuesday as the official coronavirus death toll leapt by more than 2,000 in a single day due to adjustments in the casualty figures in Mumbai and Delhi.

While Mumbai revised its toll up by 862 to 3,165 because of unspecified accounting "discrepancies", New Delhi saw a record jump of more than 400 deaths, taking its total to more than 1,800.

"The sudden surge in deaths is based on entry of data by the states. Maharashtra and Delhi have reconciled data from previous days," a Health Ministry official said.

It was not immediately clear how many of the deaths had occurred in the past 24 hours and how many were from adjustments over a longer period.

Meanwhile, India, the fourth-worst-hit country in the world by cases, recorded 354,065 cases in the last 24 hours. India added 10,974 new coronavirus infections, according to the Union Health Ministry, along with 2,003 new deaths.

Among the states, Maharashtra -- the worst-hit state -- accounted for 1,409 fatalities, taking its COVID-19 death tally to 5,537, according to the official data updated at 8 am.

Besides, Tamil Nadu reported 49 deaths followed by Gujarat  at 28, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana at 18 each, Madhya Pradesh 11, West Bengal 10, Rajasthan 7, Karnataka 5 and Telangana 4.

Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Punjab, Puducherry and Uttarakhand have reported one death each in the last 24 hours.

On Wednesday, the number of active cases stood at 1,55,227, while 1,86,934 people have recovered. "Thus, around 52.79 cent patients have recovered so far," an official said.