Total chaos in Budapest: Trains to the West cancelled, police drive desperate refugees away

Hungary closed the Keleti railway station on Tuesday morning, where hundreds of refugees are waiting to board trains heading to Western European countries, the state railway company MAV announced, adding that no arrivals or departures are scheduled until further notice, reports the Patria news agency.

Several hundred refugees, mostly from Middle Eastern countries, are at the station. Police have blocked the main entrance to the station and ordered people to leave the platforms, the Hungarian news agency MTI reported.

Three thousand six hundred and fifty refugees who left Budapest by train arrived in Vienna on Monday, a single-day record this year, Austrian police said on Tuesday. Hungarian authorities on Monday approved the departure of refugees by train, even though many of them did not have visas.

"Now we are checking how many of them are seeking asylum," Austrian police spokesman Patrick Maierhofer told AFP.

Hungarian authorities had not allowed these refugees, who had been staying in makeshift camps at Budapest's railway stations for days, to leave, but eventually decided to let them go, Jutarnji writes.