The world’s oldest man has died, little more than a month after celebrating his 113th birthday.
Francisco Nunez Olivera died on Monday in the village of Bienvenida in southwestern Spain, where he spent most of his life.
Videos by PopCulture.com
He was set to be buried in Bienvenida on Tuesday afternoon, and local officials declared a day of mourning to mark his death.
Bienvenida mayor Antonio Carmona confirmed Olivera’s passing, describing it as a “shame for the entire village and the whole world.”
“In recent years he has meant a lot to us, he has represented our village and he has helped make us known and loved,” Carmona told local media.
Born on December 13, 1904, relatives credited Olivera’s long life to a diet based on vegetables he grew on his own land and a glass of red wine each day, the Daily Mail reports. Every morning for breakfast, he ate sponge cake made with olive oil and a glass of milk.
The Spaniard, who has four children, nine grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren, turned 113 on December 13.
Olivera, who has two siblings ages 97 and 93, became the world’s oldest man after the death of Polish-born Holocaust survivor Israeli Yisrael Kristal in August.
“We were in the process of applying for him to enter into the Guinness Book of World Records. It meant a lot to his neighbours to be represented by the oldest man in the world,” Carmona said.
But proving Olivera’s exact age has been complicated by the fact that most of Bienvenida’s public archives were destroyed during Spain’s 1936-39 civil war.
Still, Olivera’s village called him the “grandfather of the world” and often referred to him as Marchena, due to his likeness to a Spanish flamenco singer who used that stage name.
In Olivera’s village of 2,200 people, he was one of 32 over the age of 90. Spain boasts one of the highest life expectancies in the world, something doctors attribute to the Mediterranean diet adopted by residents of the region.
