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

JAPAN | Nearly 40,000 people died alone at home in Japan in the first half of 2024, a Japanese police report shows.

Of those, nearly 4,000 were not discovered until more than a month after their deaths, and the bodies of 130 were not found until a year later, according to the National Police Agency.

According to United Nations statistics, Japan is currently the country with the most aging population in the world.

The agency hopes its report will shed light on the country’s growing problem of large numbers of older people living and dying alone.