Yahoo – AFP,
7 July 2015
Sakari Momoi, recognised as the world's oldest male at the age of 111 in August 2014, has died of kidney failure in a care home in Tokyo (AFP Photo) |
Tokyo (AFP)
- The world's oldest man, Sakari Momoi, has died in Japan at the ripe old age
of 112, an official said Tuesday.
Momoi, born
months before the Wright brothers made their first successful flight, passed
away late Sunday, said the official at Saitama City, north of Tokyo, where he
had lived for many years.
The
supercentenarian, recognised as the world's oldest male at the age of 111 last
year, died of kidney failure in a care home in Tokyo.
"We
heard from his family... that his health worsened one or two weeks ago,"
the official said.
Momoi, a
former high school principal who was born on February 5, 1903, received a
certificate from Guinness World Records confirming the achievement last year.
Dressed in
a black suit, white shirt and silver tie, Momoi told assembled media that he
did not plan on going anywhere just yet.
"I
want to live for about two more years," he said in soft voice at that
time.
He was born
in Minamisoma, Fukushima, an area badly hit by the deadly 9.0-magnitude
earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that triggered the world worst nuclear crisis in
a generation.
According
to the US-based Gerontology Research Group, the title of world's oldest man now
passes to Japan's Yasutaro Koide, also 112 years old and just over a month
younger than Momoi.
On the
opposite side of the Pacific, the world's oldest person celebrated her 116th
birthday on Monday.
New Yorker
Susannah Mushatt Jones, a former live-in housekeeper, known as "T" to
her 100 nieces and nephews, was born on July 6, 1899.
Japan is
known for the longevity of its people and around a quarter of its population of
128 million is aged 65 or older.
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