She lived through two world wars and several pandemics. Japan’s oldest person Fusa Tatsumi has passed away, aged 116.
Born in 1907, Tatsumi raised three children with her husband, who was a farmer in Osaka, reports local channel MBS. It was also in Osaka, in the city of Kashiwara, that she lived in a nursing home for the last years of her life.
Hirofumi Yoshimura, governor of Osaka, tells Platform X that he joined in celebrating Tatsumi’s long life in September.
“I remember how healthy Fusa Tatsumi was. I pray fervently for her soul,” tweeted Hirofumi Yoshimura.
MSB publishes photos of Fusa Tatsumi’s 116th birthday celebration in April – a party she largely slept through, sitting peacefully in a wheelchair.
Tatsumi took over the baton as Japan’s oldest last year, when 119-year-old Kane Tanaka died. However, the Japanese woman was not the oldest in the world, that title is held by US-born Maria Branyas, who turns 117 in March.
Japan has the world’s second oldest population after Monaco. Over 47,000 Japanese are 100 years or older.