HUNGARIAN authorities closed the main railway station in Budapest yesterday to stop refugees boarding trains to Austria and Germany.

Chaos ensued at Keleti station, with angry refugees chanting “freedom” and demanding to be allowed to use rail tickets that cost them hundreds of euros.

Scuffles broke out in the morning as hundreds pushed toward the metal gates where a train was to leave for Vienna and Munich and were blocked by police.

Authorities announced over station loudspeakers that all trains would be stopped from leaving for an indefinite period.

Refugees’ papers were checked, and those with train tickets but no EU visas were ushered out of the cavernous station.

The closure came after Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann complained of 3,650 refugees arriving by train from Hungary in Vienna on Monday.

“Allowing them to simply board in Budapest … and watching as they are taken to the neighbour — that’s not politics,” he said.

The horrifying discovery of the bodies of 71 people suffocated in the back of a refrigerator lorry on the road from Budapest to Vienna last week has dissuaded refugees from trusting unscrupulous people traffickers.

Mohammed, an economist from the Syrian city of Aleppo, said the chaos was the worst he has seen since leaving Syria.

He had bought a ticket to Munich for €200 (£147) after Hungarian police told him on Monday night they would be allowed to leave.

But despite showing a valid Syrian passport to officers guarding the platform, he was told he could not board because he did not have a visa for Germany.

Hungary’s Interior Minister announced that over 156,000 “illegal migrants” had entered the country as of yesterday, with around 142,000 requesting asylum, including 45,000 Syrians.

Defence Minister Csaba Hende told parliament that 3,500 troops could be sent to the southern border with Serbia to stop more refugees arriving.

Germany has accepted far more refugees than other EU nations, despite a spate of far-right protests and attacks on reception centres.

Meanwhile, Greece’s coastguard said it had rescued 1,200 refugees from the sea in the previous 24 hours, an unusually high number.