Become The World's Oldest Candidate: Grandma Is A Veteran Of Mountain Climbers, Climbing The Temple Stone Stairs Without A Stick

Tomiko Itooka. (Source: Gerontology Wiki)

JAKARTA - Tomiko Itooka, a 116-year-old grandmother from Ashiya City, Japan will be named the oldest person in the world by Guinness World Records.

Itooka became a candidate for the title after the holder of the record for the oldest person in the previous world, Maria Branyas Morera (117) from Olot in Catalonia, Spain, died on Monday, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

Born on May 23, 1908, in Osaka, Itooka is the eldest of three children, said Ashiya City Government in Hyogo Prefecture.

Itooka married around the age of 20 and then gave birth to two daughters and two sons, the group said.

During the war, she took over the responsibility of her husband to manage a textile factory in South Korea. After her husband died in 1979, she lived alone in Nara Prefecture, western Japan, where she began to be involved in mountain climbing.

He has climbed Mount Ontake twice, a mountain that stretches between Nagano Prefecture and Gifu in central Japan with a peak of about 3,000 meters, the nonprofit said.

At the age of 100, he was able to climb the stone ladder of Ashiya Temple without a stick. However, after entering a nursing home in 2019, he began to need a wheelchair to walk.

Currently, Itooka has been the oldest person in Japan since December 2023.

As previously reported, the Ashiya Temple Stone Stirs Are Without Sticks at the age of 100 years.

Maria Branyas has left us. She died as she wanted: in her sleep, peacefully and without pain," said her daughter's official X account.

Branyas once stated his death would soon be "I feel weak. Time has come. Don't cry, I don't like tears. You know me, wherever I go, I'll be happy," he said.

Maria Branyas turned 117 on March 4, according to Guinness World Records, and became the world's oldest person in January 2023.