TOKYO: Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka, known as the world’s oldest person, has died at the age of 116 in Japan’s city of Ashiya, media reported on Saturday.
Itooka died on December 29 at a nursing home, where she has been residing since 2019, and left behind four children and five grandchildren.
Tomiko Itooka was born on May 23, 1908, in Osaka, four months before the Ford Model T was launched in the United States.
Itooka lived a whole century serving world wars and pandemics as well as witnessing technological breakthroughs and the recent year of artificial intelligence.
In a statement, the city’s mayor Ryosuke Takashima said, “Ms Itooka gave us courage and hope through her long life. We thank her for it.”
Her family said that she played volleyball as a student.
In her older age, Itooka enjoyed bananas and Calpis, a milky soft drink popular in Japan, according to the mayor’s statement.
Itooka was recognised as the oldest person in the world after the August 2024 death of Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera at age 117.
Over 95,000 persons in Japan were 100 years of age or older as of September, with women making up 88% of the total.
Nearly one-third of the 124 million individuals living in the nation are 65 years of age or older.
Although women in Japan tend to live longer, the nation is experiencing a deteriorating demographic crisis as a result of rising healthcare and welfare costs brought on by an aging population and a declining labor force to cover these costs.
