TOKYO — Japanese authorities admitted Tuesday they had lost track of a 113-year-old woman listed as Tokyo’s oldest — days after police searched the home of the city’s official oldest man, only to find his long-dead, mummified body.
Officials launched a search this week for Fusa Furuya, born in July 1897 and listed as Tokyo’s oldest resident, after it emerged her whereabouts are unknown. Several other celebrated centenarians are also unaccounted for because of poor record-keeping in a country that prides itself in its number of long-lived citizens but frets about an unraveling of traditional family ties.
Officials updating their records ahead of a holiday next month honoring the elderly found that Furuya does not live at the address where she is registered, said Hiroshi Sugimoto, an official in Tokyo’s Suginami ward.
Furuya’s 79-year-old daughter said she thought her mother was with her younger brother, with whom she has lost touch.
