British tourists have been left stranded in Portugal after a fuel pump breakdown grounded flights.

People were reportedly sleeping on the terminal floor at Lisbon airport after the system failure on Wednesday left thousands of people unable to get home.

Ryanair was among the airlines affected, along with the Portuguese national carrier TAP, which was warning customers that delays would run into Thursday.

Ella Sykes, 27, from Leeds, said the scene in the terminal was "absolute carnage" when she and a friend arrived at the airport at 2pm for a 5.30pm Ryanair flight to Manchester after a short break in Lisbon.

She said: "We have been here all night.

"It's 17 hours now and we still haven't had any information from Ryanair. We have given up on the queues. We've booked a flight from Faro tomorrow morning.

"We are exhausted and we've had to fork out for accommodation overnight as well. And I was meant to be at work this morning."

On its Facebook page, the airport said there had been problems with the supply of fuel to aircraft, but it hoped flights would return to normal during Thursday.

A Ryanair spokesman said: "Due to a fuelling system outage at Lisbon Airport last night, we regret that we were forced to cancel a number of flights to/from Lisbon.

"All affected customers were provided with refreshment and accommodation vouchers, were contacted by email and SMS text message and advised of their options of a full refund, a free transfer on to the next available flight, or a free transfer on to an alternative flight route, in full compliance with EU261 legislation.

"Ryanair sincerely apologised to all customers affected by this disruption, which was entirely beyond our control."