Nearly 40,000 people died home alone in Japan this year: report

TOKYO: Almost 40,000 people died alone in their homes in Japan during the first half of 2024, a report by the country’s police shows.

Of that number, nearly 4,000 people were discovered more than a month after they died, and 130 bodies went unmissed for a year before they were found, according to the National Police Agency.

Japan currently has the world’s oldest population, according to the United Nations.The agency hopes its report will shed light on the country’s growing issue of vast numbers of its aging population who live, and die, alone.

Taken from the first half of 2024, the National Police Agency data shows that a total of 37,227 people living alone were found dead at home, with those aged 65 and over accounting for more than 70 percent.

While an estimated 40 percent of people who died alone at home were found within a day, the police report found that nearly 3,939 bodies were discovered more than a month after death, and 130 had laid unnoticed for at least a year before discovery.

Accounting for 7,498 of the bodies found, the dataset’s largest group belonged to 85-year-olds and above, followed by 75-79-year-olds at 5,920. People aged between 70 and 74 accounted for 5,635 of the bodies found.

According to Japanese public TV network NHK, the police agency will give its findings to a government group looking into the unattended deaths.

Earlier this year, the Japanese National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, said the number of elderly citizens (aged 65 and above) living alone is expected to reach 10.8m by the year 2050.