After the discovery that the oldest man in Tokyo had actually been dead for years, it should come as no surprise that the oldest woman in Tokyo has apparently been missing for decades:
Fusa Furuya, aged 113, had been registered as living with her daughter.
But the daughter says she has not seen her mother since the 1980s.
According to government data, there are more than 40,000 centenarians in Japan. But the discoveries in Tokyo have cast doubt on the accuracy of the figures.
Despite being reputed to be Tokyo’s oldest woman, it appears no-one had bothered to check that Mrs Furuya was still alive — until now.
Local council officials have been visiting the very elderly after the body of Sogen Kato, thought to be Tokyo’s oldest man, was found last week.
The police believe he had been dead for more than 30 years.
When officials went to Ms Furuya’s home, they discovered that she had been missing for decades.
Unlike the earlier case, where the man’s family had continued to collect his pension, the family of Fusa Furuya don’t appear to have been involved in pension fraud . . . although you do wonder why they hadn’t noticed her being missing all this time.
