More than 95,000 Japanese aged over 100; most of them women – Nationwide
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000 — almost 90 percent of them women — government data showed. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of September 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the health ministry said in a statement.
Separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of Japan’s population. The proportion puts Japan at the top of a list of 200 countries and regions with a population of over 100,000 people, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
Japan is currently home to the world’s oldest living person Tomiko Itooka, who was born on May 23, 1908 and is 116 years old, according to the U.S.-based Gerontology Research Group. The previous record-holder, Maria Branyas Morera, died last month in Spain at the age of 117. Itooka lives in a nursing home in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan, the ministry said. She often says “thank you” to the nursing home staff and expresses nostalgia about her hometown, the ministry said.
Japan is facing a steadily worsening population crisis, as its expanding elderly population leads to soaring medical and welfare costs, with a shrinking labour force to pay for it. The country’s overall population is 124 million, after declining by 595,000 in the previous, according to previous government data. The government has attempted to slow the decline and ageing of its population without meaningful success, while gradually extending the retirement age — with 65 becoming the rule for all employers from fiscal 2025.
Penguin escapes from wildlife exhibit in Japan; found at beach 45 kilometers away – Aichi Prefecture
Himakajima is an island in Aichi Prefecture’s Mikawa Bay, south of Nagoya, with a population of less than 2,000 people. During the recently concluded summer vacation period, a temporary penguin exhibit was set up on one of the island’s beaches, and everything seems to have gone well until the last day of the event.
On August 25, as the organisers were taking down the installation, they wanted to let the penguins cool off by taking a swim in the ocean while everything was being packed up. Unfortunately, while a containment net had been put in place to keep the animals from swimming out to the open sea, one of them, a 6-year-old cape penguin named Pen-chan, somehow slipped through the enclosure.
Penguins, of course, are not native to Japan, and Penters, the organisation that organised the event, was particularly worried about Pen-chan, since she was born and raised in captivity, and hasn’t ever had to hunt for food in the wild. Unfortunately, a search of the island’s coastlines failed to find the animal, and an approaching typhoon prevented the use of boats to expand the search to the surrounding seas.
There was a brief glimmer of hope, though, when Pen-chan was spotted at a different island, Shinojima, to the south of Himakajima. After the Shinojima sighting, though, several days went by with no developments, until finally someone again saw Pen-chan on September 8, a full two weeks after the escape. Had she made a U-turn and headed back to Himakajima? Nope, she’d done the exact opposite, travelling all the way around the tip of the Chita Peninsula and up its west coast to Shin Maiko Marine Park in the town of Chita.
After a park worker spotted Pen-chan and called out to her, the escaped penguin came over and was taken into custody, with Penters coming to pick her up soon after. She’d suffered no injuries during her two weeks surviving in the wild, and while she’d lost a little weight, she’d apparently managed to find some sort of sustenance, and is reportedly in good health and fine spirits, though Penters is keeping a close eye on her condition before returning her to the exhibition rotation.
