NICKELSDORF, Austria (AFP) — Thousands of migrants streamed into Austria from Hungary yesterday in what Vienna called a “wake-up call” for Europe to get to grips with its biggest refugee influx since World War II.

“This has to be an eye-opener how messed up the situation in Europe is now,” Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said as he arrived for talks in Luxembourg with his EU peers dominated by the crisis.

“I hope that this serves as a wake-up call that (the situation) cannot continue.”

Austrian police said that 4,000 people crossed the border during the night and yesterday, with the number predicted to rise later to 10,000.

Their arrival followed the decision by Hungary, which has become a flashpoint in the crisis, to bus thousands of migrants stranded in Budapest for days to the Austrian border.

The packed buses, in which people were strewn across the floors, using bottles for pillows, departed all through the night.

Hungary laid on the buses after around 1,200 migrants set out on foot from Budapest for the Austrian border, 175 kilometres (110 miles) away, and after large numbers escaped from refugee camps.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto blamed the “failed migration policy of the EU and…irresponsible statements made by some European politicians”.

At least 500 more migrants embarked on similar march from Budapest towards the Austrian border yesterday, an AFP correspondent in the Hungarian capital said.

There appeared to be no more buses, however, to ferry them to the frontier.

People arriving off buses earlier walked across the frontier to the Austrian town of Nickelsdorf where authorities had set up a makeshift shelter.

“The streams (of people) keep coming,” Hans Peter Doskozil, chief of police in Burgenland state, who was at the border, said yesterday morning.

Looking exhausted, but happy, most boarded special buses and trains to Vienna to take trains bound for Salzburg and from there continue to Munich, or other services running to other German cities.

German police said they expected up to 7,000 of the migrants to reach German territory yesterday.

In Vienna, the migrants, some carrying sleeping children and many wrapped in blankets, were greeted by large numbers of volunteers handing out food, drink, sanitary products, and train tickets.

“My toes hurt, a lot of blood, we walked too much. I want to go (to) Germany, but then I stop,” one 26-year-old Syrian man from Homs, both his feet wrapped in thick bandages, told AFP.

One refugee held up a big sign saying “Austrians Danke schoen” (Austrians thank you).

Hundreds of thousands of migrants have been making often perilous journeys to Europe this summer, most of them trying to reach countries in western Europe, particularly Germany.

New data from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) yesterday showed that 366,402 migrants have landed in Europe via the treacherous sea route this year, with a further 2,800 dead or missing.