World’s oldest person dies at 117

The world’s oldest person, Maria Branyas Morera, a US-born Spaniard who lived through two world wars, has died aged 117, her family said on Tuesday (20).

“Maria Branyas has left us. She passed away the way she wanted: in her sleep, in peace and without pain,” the family wrote on their X (formerly Twitter) account. “We will always remember her for her advice and kindness,” they added.

Morera, who has lived for the past 20 years at the Santa Maria del Tura nursing home in Olot, northeastern Spain, said in a post on Tuesday that she felt “weak.” “The time is near. Don’t cry, I don’t like tears. And above all, don’t suffer for me. Wherever I go, I will be happy,” she wrote on the account managed by her family.

Guinness World Records officially recognized Branyas as the world’s oldest person in January 2023, following the death of French nun Lucile Randon at age 118. With Branyas’ passing, the oldest living person is now Japanese Tomiko Itooka, born on May 23, 1908, at age 116, according to the US Gerontology Research Group.

Branyas, who lived through the 1918 flu, World Wars I and II, and the Spanish Civil War, contracted Covid-19 in 2020, just weeks after her 113th birthday, but made a full recovery after being confined to her room.

Her youngest daughter, Rosa Moret, once attributed her mother’s longevity to “genetics.” “She’s never been to the hospital, she’s never broken any bones, she’s fine and she doesn’t feel any pain,” Moret told Catalan regional television in 2023.

Branyas was born in San Francisco on March 4, 1907, shortly after his family had moved from Mexico to the United States. The family returned to Spain in 1915 during World War I, which complicated the journey by ship across the Atlantic. The crossing was marked by tragedy, with his father dying of tuberculosis at the end of the voyage and being buried at sea.

Branyas and her mother settled in Barcelona. In 1931, five years before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she married a doctor. The couple lived together for four decades until her husband’s death at the age of 72. Branyas had three children, including one who has since passed away, 11 grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren.

Manel Esteller, part of a team of researchers at the University of Barcelona who studied Branyas’ DNA to understand the causes of her longevity, told Spanish newspaper ABC in October 2023 that he was impressed by her good health. “Her mind is completely lucid. She remembers with impressive clarity episodes from when she was just four years old and she does not have any cardiovascular disease, something common in the elderly. The only limitations are mobility and hearing. It’s incredible,” said the genetics professor.

The oldest person proven to be alive was Frenchwoman Jeanne Louise Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days.

Via News Agencies