Journalist Rosa Maria Palacios criticized President Keiko Fujimori for broadcasting beauty advice on social media while heavy rains flooded southern Lima. Speaking on her current affairs program Sin Guion, Palacios described the president's repeated live streams as foolish conduct rather than an initial misstep.
The criticism followed recent rainfall in the Peruvian capital that inundated streets and homes across the southern districts of Villa El Salvador and Villa Maria del Triunfo. During the emergency, Fujimori used her live video broadcasts to offer skincare tips and display artisan crafts she had received as gifts.
Palacios stated that Fujimori was speaking exclusively to her personal followers rather than addressing the wider citizenry during a public crisis. While Fujimori defended showing the handcrafted gifts as an effort to promote local artisans, she also shared details of her skincare routine with viewers, explaining that she used moisturizer due to a lack of collagen.
Palacios remarked that while making such a video once might be excused as a beginner's mistake, repeating the behavior three times demonstrated sheer foolishness. She added that Peru faced far more serious matters requiring executive attention and declared that citizens deserved respect from their elected authorities, noting that the spectacle caused her secondhand embarrassment.
Skincare advice during municipal flooding
Official measurements indicated that the coastal city received between 3.5 and 4 millimeters of rainfall during the weather event. Palacios warned that even this light precipitation produced widespread waterlogging because metropolitan Lima lacks an underground stormwater drainage network.
As a desert capital built on arid coastal land, Lima rarely sees rainfall and possesses virtually no public drainage infrastructure to handle heavy downpours. Consequently, minor precipitation frequently leads to severe street flooding, mud accumulation, and structural disruption in low-income outer districts.
Concerns over Lima rain season and drainage
Palacios expressed deep concern over how the city would cope when the regular Andean rainy season begins in November and continues through March. She noted that while the Housing Ministry had deployed six motor pumps to remove standing water from the affected southern neighborhoods, a substantially larger fleet of industrial pumps would be necessary to safeguard the capital in the coming months.
Motor pumps are motorized suction units used by emergency services and government officials to clear standing water from flooded thoroughfares when gravity drainage is unavailable. The emergency intervention in southern Lima was overseen by the Housing Ministry to alleviate immediate neighborhood flooding.
