BIOGRAPHY

Asa Takii was born in Hiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan on 28 April 1884.

On 6 August 1945, at the age of 61, Takii survived the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima City. She said that she was washing clothes when she saw a huge flash. The blast killed her husband and family and buried her in the rubble of her home until she was found days later.

Takii loved poetry and regularly wrote haiku, a traditional Japanese form of poetry, until giving up at the age of 106. Following the death of 109-year-old Tsuma Yasuda on 21 December 1992, she became the oldest living person in Hiroshima Prefecture.

Asa Takii died of heart complications from high blood pressure in Kurahashi (on the island of Kurahashi; now in the city of Kure), Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan on 31 July 1998. She was aged 114 years, 94 days.

RECOGNITION

She was the oldest person in Japan from the death of Suekiku Miyanaga on 20 June 1998, until her own death six weeks later.

After her death, Tase Matsunaga became the oldest living person in Japan.

She was also the second-oldest person in the world (after Sarah Knauss). She was also the oldest person ever from Hiroshima until her longevity record was broken by Mitoyo Kawate in 2003.

ATTRIBUTION

GALLERY