A heavy smoker – whose documents appear to make him the oldest person to have ever lived – has died at 146, his family have revealed.
Indonesian Sodimedjo, who was also known as Mbah Ghoto or “Grandpa Ghoto”, was born in December 1870, according to his papers.
However, there are some questions over the reliability of this information as Indonesia started recording births only in 1900.
But officials in Indonesia say his claims were valid, based on interviews and documents he had provided.
Ghoto was taken to hospital on April 12 because of his ailing health, but insisted on returning to his village in Central Java six days later.
“Since he came back from the hospital, he only ate spoonfuls of porridge and drank very little,” his grandson Suyanto told the BBC.
“It only lasted a couple of days. From that moment on to his death he refused to eat and drink.”
A lifelong heavy smoker, he is said to have outlived four wives, all of his children as well as 10 siblings.
When previously asked about the key to his longevity, he said patience was key and that he had enjoyed a long life because he had people who loved him that looked after him.
His remarkable life experiences made him a great story-teller, with wars against Japan and Dutch colonisers making him a hero in his village.
Scientists are likely to question whether his claim could be possible, with a study last year claiming that the natural limit to human life is no more than 125 years.
Researchers led by Jan Vijg of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York concluded that there was an age limit beyond which humans just cannot pass naturally.
Ghoto was buried in a local cemetery plot he bought several years ago.
“He didn’t ask for much. Before he died, he just wanted us, his family, to let him go,” his grandson said.
Officially, no human has lived longer than 122 – the age reached by Jeanne Calment at her death in 1997.
If independently verified, his age would make Ghoto older than the Frenchwoman, who is considered to be the longest-living human in recorded history.
It would mean he was born in the same year as the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin and a year after the Suez Canal opened.
He will have lived through two world wars, resulting in the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies, with seven British monarchs reigning in his lifetime.
Others also claim to have broken Calment’s record, including Nigerian James Olofintuyi, who claimed to have made it to 171, and Dhaqabo Ebba from Ethiopia, who reckoned he was 163. - Daily Mail