Early on Wednesday, the AP news agency reported
the number of refugees stranded outside the Keleti station had swollen to 3,000, as citizen patrols were brought in to assist police to keep order.
Volunteer groups accustomed to providing food, clothing and medical assistance to a few hundred migrants at a time were struggling with the large number of people crammed outside the station's main entrance.
On Tuesday hundreds of people demanding to travel to Germany faced off with police outside the station, as new figures highlighted the unprecedented scale of Europe's refugee crisis.
More than 350,000 people, many from war-torn Syria, have made the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean so far this year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
Police cleared and briefly shut the station late on Tuesday, after thousands of refugees boarded trains for Germany and Austria on Monday, but later opened it to tourists and residents.
As night fell, hundreds of mainly Syrian refugees blocked from the station entrance by a police line, chanted "Germany, Germany," and "Hungary, let us go".
Why Al Jazeera will not say Mediterranean 'migrants'
Some held improvised placards from cardboard boxes calling for the UN to step in, while a protester hoisted on another's shoulders held up a Germany football shirt to cheers.
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Once again, the issue of free movement in Europe and the biggest
refugee crisis since the Second World War is playing out in front of
people in a capital city |
"But perhaps the dilemma the refugees are in is conveyed more by the sight of exhausted families who had bought their tickets only to be turned away. They settled in the shade wherever they could find it, refusing to move," he said.
The police continued to hold back, though, and by midnight the tension had eased, with most of the refugees retreating to a nearby makeshift shelter to sleep, many vowing to return to the station entrance in the morning.
Hungarian railway authorities said earlier they would allow "only those in possession of the appropriate travel documents and - if necessary - a visa" to board trains travelling to western Europe.
In a statement posted on their website, the Hungarian police said they would "continue to carry out [their] duties in accordance with the Schengen rules on border control".
The ban was enforced just 24 hours after police had unexpectedly allowed people stuck for days in camps to leave Budapest, with hundreds surging onto trains bound for Germany and Austria, despite many not having EU visas.
This saw the highest number of refugees entering Austria in a single day this year, with police saying 3,650 arrived in Vienna by train on Monday.
Many continued on to Germany, which last week eased asylum restrictions for Syrian refugees.
German police said a record 3,500 asylum seekers had turned up in Bavaria on Tuesday. Sweden also said the number of asylum requests there was nearing historic levels.
Also late on Tuesday, cross-channel rail services were suspended between England and France after refugees made their way onto the Eurostar service's tracks.
Record influx
The latest flashpoint in Hungary, one of several recent standoffs at borders and transport hubs across the continent, came as the IOM published new figures revealing the scale of Europe's biggest refugee crisis since World War II.
"Once again, the issue of free movement in Europe and the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War is playing out in front of people in a capital city," Simmons said.
Out of the 350,000 arrivals by sea so far this year, 234,770 alone were in Greece, it said.
That figure by itself is more than the entire Europe-wide total for all of 2014.
At least 2,600 died trying to reach Europe, either by drowning or suffocating in packed or unseaworthy boats, the agency said.
Stories of refugees dying in horrific conditions crammed inside vans and trucks have piled the pressure on the EU, which has scheduled emergency talks for September 14.
The influx is Europe's "greatest challenge", Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Tuesday during talks in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Within the EU, the crisis has stoked friction over burden-sharing - about help for "front-line" nations where the refugees arrive by sea or land, and about sharing out the numbers who are granted asylum.
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