World’s oldest woman dies aged 116

MARIA Esther de Capovilla, the world’s oldest person according to Guinness World Records, has died in Ecuador aged 116.

Her granddaughter Catherine Capovilla, aged 46, a property manager and estate agent in Miami, Florida, said she died on Sunday in a hospital in the coastal city of Guayaquil, two days after coming down with pneumonia.

Born on September 14, 1889 — the same year as Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler — Ms Capovilla was married in 1917 and widowed in 1949.