Lucía Chacón Hechevarría, Cuba's longest-lived woman, dies at 112 years old

July 26, 2024

Lucía Chacón Hechevarría, the longest-lived person recorded in Cuba, passed away early this week in Mayarí Arriba, Santiago de Cuba.

At the time of her death, Chacón Hechevarría was 112 years old, an age that made her a supercentenarian.

According to data reported by the newspaper Sierra Maestra, based on a Facebook post by journalist Idalberto Aguilar Macías, Lucía was born on December 11, 1911 in El Grillo, a locality near Sabanilla.

Thus, the elderly woman was just months away from turning 113, which would have placed her only one year behind Faustina Sarmiento Pupo, who lived between 1905 and 2019.

According to Aguilar Macías, "Lucía Chacón's testimonies were essential for clarifying many facts and events that occurred in the Mayarí region, from the beginning of the 20th century and details from the 19th century, as she spoke proudly of her mambí grandfathers: Tomás Macías and Onofre Orozco".

The Research Group on Gerontology, which picked up the story, notes that after marrying Eduardo Díaz, Lucía had ten children. Her descendants at the time of her death consisted of 42 grandchildren, 73 great-grandchildren, and 26 great-great-grandchildren.

The same source states that as of March 7, 2021, following the death of Pedro Batista Layana, age 111, the woman from Santiago became the oldest known living person in Cuba. When she celebrated her 110th birthday in December 2021, she reached the age at which people are considered supercentenarians.

A study conducted by the University of Montreal, cited by El Nuevo Herald, revealed that the possibility of reaching that limit was found in a proportion of only 1 in 100 thousand people.

That outlet also mentions statistics recorded through 2015 in Japan, a nation recognized for its high longevity rate, where of the 61,763 people who exceeded 100 years of age, only 146 reached 110 years.

The oldest living person in the world would currently be María Branyas Morera, at age 117, born in the U.S. city of San Francisco, and currently residing in Catalonia, Spain, according to the same publication.

The title of the oldest person ever to have lived goes to the French woman Jeanne Louise Calment, who reached 122 years and 164 days. The renowned Guinness Book of Records indicates that she was born on February 21, 1875 and died on August 4, 1997.