Kane Tanaka, world’s oldest Japanese woman, dies at 119

According to INEGI statistics, at present, a person lives around 74 or 75 years on average, so when someone exceeds that age until they reach 100 years, it is considered a rare event. However, although they are few, it has been known of citizens from different parts of the world who have not only reached the age of one hundred, but have exceeded it.

Such is the case of Kane Tanaka, the Japanese woman considered to be the oldest person in the world. Unfortunately, on April 19, 2022, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare released the news of her sensitive death at 119 years of age.

Kane Tanaka was born on January 2, 1903 in the Fukuoka region of southwestern Japan, a memorable year, since it was the same year that brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright first flew an airplane and when Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.

The Japanese woman was in good health and lived in a nursing home, where she loved spending time with her peers, drinking soda or eating chocolate and playing board games. However, at the beginning of April, her family assured through a tweet that she was not in good health, since she was frequently sick, so she was in and out of the hospital.

【近況報告】
♀️
実は、最近体調を崩すことが増え、入退院を繰り返しています。

そのような中でも、コーラやオロナミンC、チョコを食べたいと言って食べているようつ🁥😂

今は少しでも体調が良くなる事をただただ願っています😢🙏 pic.twitter.com/mEeXlc3pT1

— 田中カ子 (@tanakakane0102) April 13, 2022

He was in and out of the hospital repeatedly since the end of last year. Thanks to all those who have supported us.

– Junko, granddaughter of Kane Tanaka

During her life, the woman beat cancer twice, survived two world wars, the Spanish flu of 1918 and, recently, the covid-19 pandemic. She even had a wheelchair ready for her to be in charge of carrying the Tokyo 2020 Olympic torch, but her participation had to be canceled due to the coronavirus.

In 1922, at the age of 19, she married Hideo Tanaka, a man who owned a rice shop with whom she had four children and adopted a fifth, who gave her five grandchildren and, later, eight great-grandchildren.

In 2019, Robert Young, the senior consultant of Gerontology, was in charge of confirming her before the Guinness Records as the oldest living woman in the world.

According to data from the World Bank, Japan is the country with the longest population in the world, with more than 28 percent of people aged 65 or older.

It should be noted that Kane does not have the record for being the oldest, since that place is held by the French Jeanne Louise Calment, who died at 122 years and 164 days in 1997.

With the death of the Japanese woman, the oldest living person is the French nun Lucile Randon, better known as Sister André, who is currently 118 years and 74 days old. Now the oldest Japanese woman is Fusa Tatsumi, who is 115 years old and is considered the fifth oldest person in the world on record.