As COVID-19 or the coronavirus continues to spread across the country, Indian bourses took a further beating, and crashed for a second consecutive day. The Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share index tumbled 3,090 points to 29,687 compared with Thursday's close of 32,778.
The National Stock Exchange's Nifty too registered a steep decline in opening trading: the 50-share index nosedived 966 points to trade at 8,624.
In the market mayhem on Thursday, triggered by the declaration of COVID-19 as a "pandemic" by the World Health Organisation, Indian investors lost massively as a total $147.16 billion is estimated to have been wiped out. Indian bourses witnessed the biggest intra-day fall on Thursday.
Incessant selling gripped both the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex and the National Stock Exchange’s Nifty on Thursday, which fell 2,919 points and 868 points respectively.
A month ago, on 12 February, Sensex was trading at 41,459 points and Nifty at 12,174 points.
On 12 March, a 76-year-old man from the southern Indian state of Karnataka succumbed to coronavirus, marking the first death from the illness in the country.
India has recorded over 60 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with thousands of people who had a travel history to countries affected by the virus being kept under observation.
At present, over 120,000 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed globally, with more than 4,700 documented deaths, according to data collected by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
