Kane Tanaka: Japanese woman certified world’s oldest person dies

A Japanese woman officially certified as the world’s oldest person has died aged 119.

Kane Tanaka was born in 1903, the same year as George Orwell, at a time when Japan was emerging as a global power.

She got married a century ago, and had four children. She spent her later years in a Japanese care home, where she enjoyed board games and chocolate.

With her death, the world’s oldest person is now Lucile Randon, a 118-year-old French nun.

She twice survived cancer and lived through a multitude of historical events, surviving two world wars and the 1918 Spanish flu — as well as the Covid-19 pandemic.