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TOKYO – A Japanese woman thought to be the world’s oldest person, Kane Tanaka, has died at the age of 119, just months before her goal of turning 120.
Born on January 2, 1903, Tanaka loved to play the board game Othello and had a fondness for chocolate and fizzy drinks. She was certified by Guinness World Records as the oldest living person in 2019 at the age of 116. On several occasions she said she was still enjoying life and hoped to live to 120.
Tanaka died of old age on April 19 in a hospital in Fukuoka, her hometown in southern Japan where she has lived her whole life, city officials said on Tuesday. Tanaka, who had been living in a nursing home, was only recently hospitalized, they said.
Fukuoka Governor Seitaro Hattori said in a statement he was shocked and saddened by their loss as he looks forward to personally celebrating Respect for Age Day later this year over chocolate and fizzy drinks as he had to miss the event last year because of the pandemic.
“I could only see her in one picture where she’s holding the bouquet and making a ‘peace’ sign (with her fingers), but that cheered me up,” Hattori said. “She gave people hope for a healthy long life.”
With her death, the world’s oldest person is now Lucile Randon, a French nun named Sister Andre, aged 118, according to The Gerontology Research Group. In Japan, the new record holder is a 115-year-old woman Fusa Tatsumi from Osaka, the Japanese Ministry of Health said.
Japan, whose population is aging and shrinking rapidly, had 86,510 centenarians, 90% of them women, according to the ministry’s latest figures.
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