Yone Minagawa, who became the world's oldest person earlier this year, has died at a nursing home in Fukuoka Prefecture, an official said Tuesday. She was 114.
Minagawa, who raised four sons and a daughter on her own by peddling flowers and vegetables, died Monday afternoon, said Toshiro Tachibana, an official at the nursing home in the former mining town of Fukuchi.
The attending physician gave old age as the cause of death, he said.
"Her appetite had been declining recently and her energy fading, so the family had asked us to make her as comfortable as possible. The death was not sudden," Tachibana said.
Born on Jan. 4, 1893, Minagawa was named the world's oldest person by the Guinness World Records in January following the death of Emma Faust Tillman, also 114, in the United States.
Minagawa outlived all of her children except one daughter, and has seven grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren, the nursing home said.
The world's oldest person is now 114-year-old Edna Parker of Indiana, who was born April 20, 1893, according to the Gerontology Research Group.
The world's oldest man is Tomoji Tanabe, 111, of Miyazaki.
