Lifeboats and other equipment will be used to help in flooded areas

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution's Rapid Response Unit is helping out in the country, parts of which were hit by heavy rains.

It includes crew from Teesside, North Yorkshire and Northumberland.

The first members of the unit were flying out on Tuesday morning and they were due to take out lifeboats and other equipment.

The team involves Adrian Carey, 37, deputy divisional Inspector for the RNLI in the North, based at Thornaby-on-Tees, and Jason Webber, 30, a volunteer RNLI crewman from Flamborough Lifeboat Station.

'Deploy quickly'

Mick Mullane, 38, and Dr Peter Billingsley, 38, volunteer crewmen from Scarborough Lifeboat Station and Malcolm Richardson, 29, volunteer crewman from Amble Lifeboat Station, in Northumberland are also flying out.

The Rapid Response Unit is made up of trained RNLI volunteer crew members and full-time staff from around the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

RNLI chief executive Andrew Freemantle said: "We received a call for assistance from the Department for International Development and we are very pleased to be able to help the people of Guyana in this way.

"The RNLI maintains a state of readiness to assist in such disasters so that we are able to deploy very quickly when the call comes."