117-year-old Japanese woman, seen as world’s oldest person, dies

April 22, 2018

Kagoshima- Nabi Tajima, seen as the oldest living person in the world, died of old age at a hospital in her town of Kikai in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, on Saturday. She was 117.

Born on Aug. 4, 1900, Tajima became the country's oldest living person in September 2015.

According to the Kagoshima prefectural government, Tajima passed away when an investigation by Guinness World Records was under way to confirm whether she could be certified as the new oldest person on the globe after the death of a Jamaican woman at 117 in September last year.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said that Chiyo Miyako, a 116-year-old woman in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, is now the oldest person in the country. Jiji Press