World's oldest person, Kane Tanaka, passes away at 119 in Japan

Kane Tanaka, a Japanese woman certified as the oldest person in the world by the Guinness World Records in 2019, passed away at the age of 119 at a hospital in Fukuoka city last week.

According to local officials, Tanaka was born on January 2, 1903, and died of old age on April 19. With her demise, 118-year-old French nun Lucile Randon has become the world's oldest person. Tanaka's family, in a tweet, said that she had been "in and out of the hospital recently." Guinness World Records also put out a tweet post her death.

"She became the oldest living person in January 2019 at the age of 116 years and 28 days. She is also the second oldest person ever recorded, behind only Jeanne Calment who lived to the age of 122," read the statement from Guinness World Records.

Tanaka was born in 1903, a year when Theodore Roosevelt was US president, Edward VII was British King and the Wright Brothers flew their motor-driven plane for the first time.

She even survived cancer, not once but twice. She lived through several historical events, which included two world wars, the 1918 Spanish flu, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

She was living at a nursing home and used to enjoy playing board games and solving math problems, according to a report in The Independent. Her family added that she had a sweet tooth and would often enjoy chocolates and soda.

Tanaka ran a number of businesses during her younger years, which included a rice shop and a rice cake store. At the nursing home, she would wake up at 6.00 am and spend her afternoon studying mathematics and practising calligraphy.

She married Hideo Tanaka almost 100 years ago in 1922. She had four children and adopted her fifth child. Her husband even fought in the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and her son fought in World War II.

Tanaka was to take part in the torch relay at the Tokyo Olympics, but she could not do it because of the COVID-19 pandemic.