A Japanese woman believed to be the oldest in the world has died at the age of 119. Kane Tanaka was born on January 2, 1903, and saw the reigns of five Japanese emperors.
Japanese authorities on Monday announced the death of the woman believed to have been the oldest living person in the world.
The local government in Fukuoka, in southwestern Japan, said Kane Tanaka had died on April 19 at the age of 119.
Guinness World Records listed Tanaka as the oldest living person in the world and paid tribute in a Twitter post.
Guinness World Records also said
“She is also the second oldest person ever recorded, behind only Jeanne Calment who lived to the age of 122.”
Tanaka’s family said in a tweet earlier this month that she had been frequently sick recently and “in and out of hospital.”
Born in 1903, Tanaka married a rice shop owner at the age of 19, and worked in the family store until she was 103.
She twice survived cancer and lived through a multitude of historical events, surviving two world wars and the 1918 Spanish flu — as well as the Covid-19 pandemic.
