World's oldest woman passes away in Japan

Tokya : Nabi Tajima, a Japanese woman believed to have been the world's oldest person, has died at the age of 117, the media reported on Sunday.

Tajima, a resident of Japan's Kagoshima, had been hospitalised since January and died from old age on Saturday evening, Xinhua news agency reported.

Born in 1900, Tajima was believed to have become the world's oldest person after previous record-holder Violet Brown of Jamaica died at age 117 in September 2017.

The Guinness World Records had been conducting surveys to officially recognise Tajima as the world's oldest woman since the death of Violet Brown.

The organisation recognised Masazo Nonaka, a 112-year-old Japanese man residing in Japan's Hokkaido, as the world's oldest living male earlier in April.