You must've needed boats to come here: Kerry jokes at IIT on Delhi rain

New Delhi: At the IIT-Delhi campus on Wednesday, United States secretary of state John Kerry joked about heavy rains in the city that flooded streets and also delayed his lecture by almost an hour.

“Don’t know how you all got here. You must’ve needed boats to get here,” Kerry said.

"You guys deserve an award for being able to get here today. I don't know if you came in boats or amphibious vehicles of some kind. But I salute you," said Kerry.

Kerry's proposed visit to three religious sites in the city was cancelled due to heavy rains.

Kerry was scheduled to visit the Gauri Shankar temple, Jama Masjid and Gurdwara Sisganj Sahib in the old Delhi area around 11 am.

"The visit had to be cancelled due to heavy rains in Delhi," sources in the US Embassy said.

Kerry, who is on a three-day-visit to India, was supposed to visit the sites yesterday itself but it was postponed. The US leader has had a difficult time with the city's traffic since he landed on Monday night.

His convoy was stuck on Satya Marg in Lutyens Delhi for an hour on Monday by a "spillover effect" owing to water logging in the main carriageways.