LONDON, United Kingdom  (AFP)—Passengers in London desperately searched for alternative flights to destinations from Pakistan to Athens after hundreds of journeys in and out of Heathrow airport were disrupted on Friday due to a power cut to the international travel hub.

Europe’s busiest airport was closed for the whole day after a major overnight fire at an electricity substation cut power to Heathrow airport.

At Gatwick airport, south of London, Talia Fokaides’s voice shook with emotion as she explained how she was supposed to leave London for Athens in the morning to be with her mother, who was due to undergo open-heart surgery.

When she heard Heathrow was closed, she rushed to Gatwick, the UK’s second busiest airport, and found a flight to Athens for midday (1200 GMT).

“I don’t care about the money I just need to be in a flight and home by the end of the day,” Fokaides told AFP.

“We were given no info, we were left on our own. I don’t understand how it’s possible,” she added. “I just need to be there.”

Mohammed al-Laib, a Tunisian national who works in London, was supposed to go to Dubai to be reunited with his wife whom he said he had not seen in months.

Heading towards the information desk at Gatwick, his outlook was bleak: “I don’t know if I’ll have another flight. I have no alternative now but wait. I feel powerless.”

Some 1,350 flights had been due to land or take off from Heathrow and its five terminals on Friday, according to the flight tracking website Flightradar24.

Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports and usually handles some 230,000 passengers daily and 83 million every year.

Gatwick has said it would accept some flights bound for Heathrow. Others were diverted to European airports including Shannon in southwestern Ireland, Frankfurt, and Paris Charles de Gaulle.

However, four French flight passengers were left looking tired and confused after their long flight from Cape Town in South Africa to Heathrow landed at Gatwick.

They were meant to travel on to Nice but there are no flights to the southern French city from Gatwick.

The group, who did not share their names as they rushed to catch a bus instead, said they were not given much information about what to do.

Meanwhile, 28-year-old Muhammad Khalil had been waiting at London’s Paddington station since 0530 GMT looking for alternative flights to Pakistan after his journey out of Heathrow was disrupted.

He had so far been unsuccessful, with Heathrow the main airport in the UK for long-haul international flights.

“I am trying to find another flight from Gatwick airport or Stansted but I don’t get any flight,” he said.

Khalil had hoped to be reunited with his wife after five months, and had been planning the trip for three months.

“I’ve spent so much money on tickets and everything. I had to take the day off from my job,” Khalil told AFP.

“You can’t imagine how stressful it is for me.”

Callum Burton, 21, from Kent in southern England, was stranded at Newark airport near New York after visiting his girlfriend for his 21st birthday.

He told AFP via social media that his flight had been rescheduled with a 15 hour delay, adding he was “very tired and disappointed”.