FUKUOKA: Kane Tanaka, who was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest living person and was Japan’s oldest person on record, died on Tuesday last week at a hospital in the southwestern Japan city of Fukuoka. She was 119.

She was born in the village of Wajiro, now the city’s Higashi Ward, on Jan. 2, 1903.

In March 2019, Guinness recognized Tanaka as the world’s oldest living person. Tanaka in September 2020 became the oldest person that has ever lived in Japan, passing Nabi Tajima, who was a resident of the town of Kikai in Kagoshima Prefecture, also southwestern Japan, and died in 2018 at the age of 117 years and 260 days.

According to sources including the prefectural government of Fukuoka, Tanaka ran a rice shop with her husband for a long time.

In 2005, when she turned 102, Tanaka started living at an elderly care facility in the city of Fukuoka. Tanaka, who liked carbonated soft drinks, such as cola, and chocolate, communicated with workers at the facility with gestures, such as raising her thumb.

On Respect for the Aged Day in September last year, she expressed pleasure by making a peace sign after receiving a commemorative gift and a bouquet. She was in good health at the time although she was requiring more and more sleeping time.

Since the beginning of this year, she started feeling sick frequently and was hospitalized on and off.

According to the health ministry, Fusa Tatsumi, a 115-year-old woman in the city of Kashiwara, Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, is now the oldest living person in Japan.

JIJI Press