OSAKA (Kyodo) The Osaka Municipal Government said Wednesday it has found that residence registries have been retained for 5,125 people who would be 120 years or older if they were alive, including a man who was born in 1857.
The revelation followed the municipal government's checks on the registries that went online over the last two years, after the problem of unaccounted for centenarians came into light nearly a month ago with sloppy bureaucratic paperwork having been partially blamed.
An official in charge of the city's residence registries said it was impossible to delete all the data linked to the problem because the municipal government had to work on registries for about 2.9 million people for its online database system.
Also on Wednesday, the municipal governments of Takahama, Aichi Prefecture, and Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture, said they have kept registries for two women who were born in 1867 and 1862.
Such bungling came after the Higashi Osaka Municipal Government in Osaka Prefecture reported Tuesday that residence registries had been retained for 228 people who would be at least 120 years old, including one person who would be 149 years old.