Austria Plans Border Checks as Thousands Backlogged on Route to Germany

Salzburg, Austria: Austria said on Tuesday it would impose new restrictions at its borders from midnight, as the country on the main route for migrants crossing the European Union by land struggled to cope with a backlog of thousands trying to reach Germany.

Thousands of migrants have poured into Austria in recent days, rushing through Hungary ahead of a deadline that saw that country close its border with Serbia.

The route is the main one used by tens of thousands of migrants heading over land across the Balkan peninsula for the EU in the biggest influx to Western Europe since World War Two.

More than 15,000 migrants walked across Austria's border from Hungary on Monday, a record since the start of the crisis.

Most are bound for Germany, which announced last month it would accept Syrian refugees regardless of where they enter the EU and is preparing to accept 800,000 asylum seekers this year.

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Overwhelmed by the sudden arrival of thousands into Munich, Germany imposed new checks at its border on Sunday. That has created a backlog in Austria, which has had to cancel most westbound trains because of the strain.

"Very many travellers are already waiting at Salzburg's main station for their onward journey," the national rail company OeBB said in a statement. Salzburg is the last city on most migrants' route out of Austria. About 500 migrants were among those waiting, officials said, and hundreds more were expected.

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"Because of the border controls, there can be backlogs and train cancellations," OeBB said. "OeBB advises travellers against journeys to Germany."

Germany's decision to suspend control-free travel from other EU countries has prompted neighbours to consider measures of their own, threatening to unravel the continent's Schengen border-free travel zone.

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Austria would introduce similar controls to Germany's as of midnight (2200 GMT), an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

The exact nature of the controls was not specified, but Austria's defence minister has said people arriving at the border will not be sent back to Hungary.

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In Salzburg, crowds of migrants waited patiently in the station for trains to take them across the border.

"The biggest problem is the station. We need to keep it running," Wilfried Haslauer, the governor of Salzburg province, told Reuters. Around 80 percent of the scheduled trains towards Munich, the main route into Germany, were cancelled on Tuesday because of the border controls, according to OeBB staff in Salzburg.

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There were around 10,000 migrants in Vienna, police there said.

NEW ROUTES

The rush into Austria eased on Tuesday after Hungary shut its border with Serbia, giving Austria more time to arrange the transfer of people to Germany.

Police in the eastern province of Burgenland said around 6,000 migrants had entered Austria from Hungary on Tuesday.

Hungary has over the last couple of weeks transported tens of thousands of migrants to near its border with Austria and left them to walk across into the Austrian town of Nickelsdorf.

"We think that many thousand people were still on the go in Hungary before the border closed and they will surely make their way to Nickelsdorf here in Austria and try to continue their journey to Germany," a police spokesman said on Tuesday morning.

Austria was also bracing itself for a shift in migrants' routes after Hungary's closure of the Serbian border.

"Today will be a decisive day for us," the director general for public security, Konrad Kogler, told ORF radio. "We expect that if (Hungary's) measures are very effective we will have to deal with different, new routes."