Migrants enter a bus, which is supposed to leave to Austria and Germany, at the Keleti trainstation in Budapest, Hungary, September 4, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

On Friday, a crowd that swelled to over 1,000 broke away, streaming through the capital, over a bridge and out onto the main highway from Budapest to Vienna, escorted by police struggling to keep the road open. Some clutched pictures of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The turmoil contrasted with a pledge by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to get to grips with a crisis he says threatens Europe's prosperity, identity and "Christian values"; parliament on Friday tightened laws that his government said would effectively seal Hungary's southern border to migrants as of Sept. 15.

Orban, one of Europe's most outspoken critics of mass immigration, hailed "a different era", but Friday brought more desperate scenes. A Pakistani man died, police said. State television said he had stumbled and hit his head as he ran down train tracks.