LAST UPDATE | 1 May 2025

THE WORLD’S OLDEST person, Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro Lucas, has died at the age of 116, having barely survived infancy and attributing her long life to God, her order and two longevity trackers said.

The title now passes to Ethel Caterham, a resident of Surrey, England, who is 115 years old, according to the US Gerontological Research Group (GRG) and the LongeviQuest database.

Born on 8 June 1908, Canabarro became the world’s oldest person following the death in January of Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka, who was also aged 116.

The Congregation of Teresian Sisters of Brazil in Porto Alegre announced Canabarro’s passing yesterday in a statement in which it gave thanks “for the dedication and devotion” she had shown in life.

LongeviQuest, in an obituary, said Canabarro had been a frail child, and “many doubted she would survive.”

She became a nun in 1934 at the age of 26, between World Wars I and II.

Canabarro had attributed her longevity to God, saying: “He is the secret of life. He is the secret of everything,” according to LongeviQuest.

For her 110th birthday, she received a blessing from Pope Francis.

Although she had claimed her date of birth was 27 May 1908, “her documented birth date according to records is June 8, 1908,” GRG director Robert Young told AFP in January.

LongeviQuest said Canabarro had been the 15th-oldest documented person in history, and the second-oldest nun after France’s Lucile Randon, who lived to the age of 118 and died in 2023.

Ethel Caterham

After Canabarro’s passing, a British woman named Ethel Caterham has became the world’s oldest person at the age of 115.

Caterham was born in a village in Hampshire on 21 August 1909, the second youngest of eight children. She lives in a care home in Surrey, also in southern England, having outlived her husband and both of her daughters.

On her 115th birthday, she said her secret to longevity is: “Never arguing with anyone! I listen and I do what I like.”

She has three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

She was driving up until she was just shy of 100 and played bridge for many years. She even survived a bout of Covid at the age of 110 in 2020. The same year, she told the BBC that in her life, she had “taken everything in my stride, the highs and lows”.

“I’ve been all over the world, and I’ve ended up in this lovely home,” she said.

In 2022, Caterham said that for her, “family is the most important thing in life, to be able to leave memories with your children and grandchildren.”

© AFP 2025