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19th Apr 2018

Man believed to be world’s oldest has died aged 121

His birthday was in July last year

Conor Heneghan

He turned 121 in July of last year

The man believed to be the oldest man in the world, Chilean native Celino Villanueva Jaramillo, passed away at the age of 121 on Wednesday.

According to the Guardian, who interviewed Jaramillo as recently as last year, he died in hospital in the town of San José de Mariquina, having broken three ribs and pierced a lung after falling out of bed last week.

Although it had been believed that Jaramillo was the oldest living man on the planet, he didn’t officially hold the title as he was not recognised by Guinness due to the lack of official verification of his date of birth.

For similar reasons, an Indonesian man known as Sodimedjo previously held the unofficial title as the world’s oldest man before he passed away at a reported age of 146 last year.

According to the Gerontology Research Group, the world’s oldest man is now Masazou Nonaka, from Japan, who was born on 25 July 1905 (he shares the same birthday as Jaramillo) and is currently 112 years old.

The same source states that there are 23 women currently alive who are older than Nonaka, including the world’s oldest living person, Japanese woman Nabi Tajima, who was born in 1900 and is due to turn 118 on 4 August this year.