A 117-year-old woman with a weakness for fizzy drinks and chocolate has become Japan’s oldest person on record, as the country marks a public holiday devoted to its senior citizens.
Kane Tanaka, who had already been recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s oldest living person in March last year, achieved the all-time Japanese age record on Saturday when she became 117 years and 261 days old.
The supercentenarian, who lives in a nursing home in the south-western city of Fukuoka, beat the previous record, held by another Japanese woman, Nabi Tajima, who died in April 2018 aged 117 years and 260 days.
Tanaka celebrated the achievement with a bottle of Coke – her favorite drink – and wore a T-shirt with her face printed on it that had been given to her by members of her family.
