Arab News Japan

DUBAI: A 116-year-old Japanese woman who used to be a mountaineer is set to be named the world’s oldest person by Guinness World Records, a research group said on Wednesday, following the death of a 117-year-old Spanish woman earlier this week.

Japan’s Tomiko Itooka is set to become the oldest person in the world after the passing of Maria Branyas, who formerly held the title.

According to the Gerontology Research Group, which validates details of people thought to be 110 or older, Itooka is listed as the next older person after Branyas.

On Tuesday, the Spaniard’s family announced her death in a post on Branyas’ X account, saying: “Maria Branyas has left us. She has gone the way she wanted: in her sleep, at peace, and without pain.”

Itooka was born in Osaka in 1908 and is the eldest of three siblings, according to the Ashiya city government in Hyogo Prefecture.

She married at 20 years old and had four children. Reports said that during the war, she took over from her husband to manage a textile factory in South Korea.

After her husband died in 1979, she lived alone in Nara Prefecture. Itooka is known to have climbed Mt. Ontake twice, which has a peak of about 3,000 meters.

At the age of 100, she climbed the stone steps of Ashiya Shrine without a cane. However, later on, she entered a nursing home in 2019 and required a wheelchair.

Itooka has been Japan’s oldest person since December 2023.