An unidentified elderly Japanese woman -- Image by © Andy Rain/epa/Corbis
It seems that Japan—famed for its citizens’ longevity—hasn’t actually been keeping tabs on whether the oldest living citizens were actually, you know, still around. Awkward!
After discovering that Tokyo’s oldest man, 111-year-old Sogen Kato, had actually been dead for 30 years and that his family was hiding his mummified body at home so they could still collect his pension checks, Japanese officials did some digging.
Checking up on Fusa Furuya, aged 113, they learned that no one has actually had contact with the woman since 1986, including her 79-year-old daughter. The address where Furuya’s daughter had thought her mother resided turned out to be for a vacant lot.
Now, according to the Associated Press, “authorities are also looking for a 106-year-old man who is missing in Nagoya, central Japan, Kyodo News agency reported. The Asahi newspaper said three more centenarians were unaccounted for in Tokyo.”
Officially, Japan has over 40, 000 centenarian citizens—though in light of recent events, that number seems a little suspect.