World's oldest person dies in Japan at 114: report

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2007

TOKYO (AFP) — The world's oldest person, a Japanese woman who counted eating well and getting plenty of sleep as the secret of her longevity, died Monday at age 114, a news report said.

Yone Minagawa, who lived in a nursing home but was still sprightly late in life, died "of old age" Monday evening, Kyodo News reported.

There was no immediate answer to a telephone call placed late Monday to city hall in her mountainous hometown of Fukuchi in southern Fukuoka prefecture.

Born on January 4, 1893, Minagawa blew out the candles on her own birthday cake earlier this year.

She was already in her 50s when Japan surrendered in World War II, starting a new era for her country.

Widowed at an early age, she reportedly raised her five children by selling...