Photo: Well-wishers waved to and clapped migrants as they arrived at the main railway station in Dortmund, Germany. (Reuters: Ina Fassbender)
Related Story: Austria, Germany open borders to asylum seekers offloaded by Hungary
Related Story: Exhausted asylum seekers stream into Austria from Budapest
Another group of asylum seekers has streamed into Germany to cheers and "welcome" signs, as Austria announces it plans to phase out emergency measures that have allowed thousands who were stranded in Hungary to enter.
Key points:
- Migrants arrive to applause, welcome signs as they arrive in Germany
- Austrian chancellor says emergency measures will be phased out and calls for emergency European Union meeting to discuss solution
- Pope calls on religious community to take in migrant families
The group has joined the thousands who have already arrived in what is the continent's worst refugee crisis since World War II.
Many are fleeing war in the Middle East and hope to take refuge in Germany, Europe's richest country, but the EU is divided over how to cope with the influx which has provoked both huge sympathy and anti-Muslim resentment among Europeans.
Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann said the decision to phase out the emergency measures, a day after the measures were put in place, followed "intensive talks" with German chancellor Angela Merkel and a telephone call with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.
"We have always said this is an emergency situation in which we must act quickly and humanely. We have helped more than 12,000 people in an acute situation," he said.
"Now we have to move step-by-step away from emergency measures towards normality, in conformity with the law and dignity."
Thousands of migrants and refugees arrived at Budapest's Keleti train station after travelling from Syria through the Balkans and Greece.
Hungary laid on over 100 buses to the border on Saturday night after Austria said it had agreed steps with Germany to waive the normal rules requiring refugees to apply for asylum wherever they enter the EU.
Others set off from the station to make the 170-kilometre journey on foot. The platforms filled up again on Sunday.
Bavarian authorities said 6,800 asylum seekers had arrived in the state's capital, Munich, on Saturday, and Sunday's total was about 13,000. Close to 11,000 are expected today.
In moving scenes, the newcomers, clutching their children and sparse belongings, stepped off trains in Munich, Frankfurt and elsewhere to cheers from well-wishers who held balloons, snapped photos and gave them water and food.
"The people here treat us so well, they treat us like real human beings, not like in Syria," said Mohammad, a 32-year-old from the devastated town of Qusayr.
"We are happy in Germany but we are very tired because it is very dangerous — one month Turkey and Greece," another said.
At the scene: Munich train station
Europe correspondent Barbara Miller reports from Munich's train station.
Some of the asylum seekers arriving in Munich are being escorted straight onto other trains so cordons of police block their way. They're not allowed, I guess, to come into Munich but they're taken onto another train and the idea there is to distribute these asylum seekers on to other parts of Germany.
Some are being given medical assistance. There are some tents and some health workers just outside the station — some people are being given some help there. I saw one man badly limping, he was getting some care.
Over the past few hours, I have not seen the kind of wild jubilant scenes that we saw over the weekend in Germany.
Just about an hour or so ago a group, maybe 100, 150 asylum seekers came off the train there. They were one of those groups who were escorted onto another train.
There was clapping at the station. People waiting there for them. It was also really a sense of people just very curious, wanting to see this incredible phenomenon that was going on in their city.
There are people turning up, there are some men turning up with soft animal toys for children and a woman turning up saying she was qualified medically and could she help out.
So people are here, they are offering help and they are very curious. Certainly no hostile reaction that I have seen here.Audio: Listen to Barbara Miller's report (AM)
As asylum seekers got off trains, police directed them to waiting buses bound for temporary shelters, which have been set up in public buildings, hotels and army barracks across the country.
"Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here," crowds chanted at the Frankfurt railway station throughout Saturday night.
Germany has said it expects 800,000 asylum seekers this year at a cost of 10 billion euros ($16.1 billion) and urged EU members to open their doors.
While Germany has seen a spate of ugly xenophobic rallies and attacks against foreigners, it has also seen an outpouring of support, donations and volunteer efforts by people who believe the country, given its dark history and current wealth, has a special obligation to help refugees.
Meanwhile, Austrian authorities are continuing to send buses to the Hungarian border to collect more than 1,000 asylum seekers who have spent days stranded there.
While half of the migrants had shelter and camp beds, the rest were forced to sleep out in the open, the BBC reported.
Many were also treated by the Red Cross for various ailments, including exhaustion.
On Sunday they were being taken to reception centres, along with hundreds more who chose to travel from Budapest by train.
Asylum seekers Germany's problem: Hungary
Photo: Asylum seekers search through donated clothes at a distribution centre in Dortmund, Germany after arriving by train. (Reuters: Ina Fassbender)
Politicians in Germany and elsewhere in Europe voiced growing concern about the record numbers, and warned the influx would spell both logistical and political problems.
In Austria, chancellor Faymann said Vienna's assistance was a temporary manifestation of the nation's "goodwill" in the face of a humanitarian emergency.
"There is no alternative to a common European solution," he said, as he called for the EU meeting.
Jordan's refuge of 600,000 Syrians
Jordan has given refuge to more than 600,000 Syrians. But life there is difficult and as Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill reports, many families have pinned their hopes on making it to Australia.
German chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday spoke by phone with Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orban, who called the asylum seeker wave a "German problem" caused by Berlin's public statement saying it would welcome Syrians.
"Both sides agreed that both Hungary and Germany must meet their European obligations, including their obligations under the Dublin agreement," Ms Merkel's spokesman Georg Streiter said.
Under the EU's so-called Dublin rules, asylum applications must be processed by the country where a person first arrives.
Mr Orban and Ms Merkel agreed the weekend's influx was exceptional, due to the emergency situation in Budapest, Mr Streiter said.
Ms Merkel also faces political pressure at home, where her Bavarian sister party CSU criticised the eased travel rules as "a wrong decision", according to its party secretary Andreas Scheuer.
Members warned this had created "an additional pull-factor", aside from push factors such as war, poverty and repression in their home countries.
Ms Merkel was set to hold a crisis meeting on the refugee issue later on Sunday (local time) with her coalition partners.
Pope urges religious community to take in families
Photo: Crowds in St Peter's Square applauded Pope Francis as he called for the community to help migrant families in need. (AFP: Filippo Monteforte)
Hungary's and other eastern European nations' hard line is in contrast with a show of solidarity elsewhere in Europe.
Today Pope Francis, who is himself the grandson of Italian emigrants to Argentina, called for "every parish, every religious community, every monastery, [and] every sanctuary in Europe take in a family".
There are more than 25,000 parishes in Italy alone, and more than 12,000 in Germany.
The Vatican's two parishes will also take in a family of asylum seekers each in the coming days, Pope Francis said.
He said taking in migrant families was a "concrete gesture" to prepare for the extraordinary Holy Year on the theme of mercy which was due to begin in December
On Saturday, Finnish prime minister Juha Sipila also offered to put up asylum seeker families in his country home.
Under intensifying pressure at home and abroad, British prime minister David Cameron is set to admit 15,000 refugees from Syria, the Sunday Times reported.
European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker proposed relocating 120,000 refugees from overstretched Italy, Greece and Hungary, a European source told AFP.
The plan, which comes on top of a Commission proposal in May for the relocation of 40,000 migrants, is expected to be formally unveiled by Mr Juncker on Wednesday after being approved by commissioners, the source said.
Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported that under the plan, Germany would take in about 31,000 people, followed by France with 24,000 and Spain with almost 15,000.
The political debate continued as rescuers in Cyprus saved 114 people, including 54 women and children, after their boat ran into trouble off the Mediterranean island, authorities said.
The boat was mainly carrying Syrian asylum seekers, but also some Lebanese and Palestinians from Syria, interior minister Socrates Hasikos said. He said there were no serious injuries.
Cyprus, a member of the European Union, lies just 100 kilometres off the Syrian coast but has so far avoided a mass influx of asylum seekers from the country's conflict.
'I said to myself: Dear God I hope he's alive'
Photo: Turkish police officer Mehmet Ciplak said he thought of his own son when he saw the toddler on the beach. (AFP: Dogan News Agency)
On Saturday, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said 366,402 asylum seekers had crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, with 2,800 dying or going missing en route.
The crisis was personified on Wednesday when twelve refugees drowned after two boats sank on the short crossing to Greece, including three-year-old Syrian asylum seeker Aylan Kurdi.
Words cannot describe what a sad and tragic sight it was.
Mehmet Ciplak
A distressing photograph of the toddler's lifeless body, washed ashore in Bodrum in southwest Turkey, pricked the world's conscience.
Turkish police officer Mehmet Ciplak, who was pictured picking up the body said he thought of his own son when he saw the toddler on the beach.
"When I approached the baby, I said to myself, 'Dear God I hope he's alive.' But he showed no signs of life. I was crushed," he told Turkey's Dogan news agency.
"I have a six-year-old son. The moment I saw the baby, I thought about my own son and put myself into his father's place. Words cannot describe what a sad and tragic sight it was."
Aylan was buried on Friday in the Syrian town of Kobane, itself now a symbol of resistance by Syrian Kurds against Islamic State (IS) extremists.
