This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Munich is at the limit of its capacity to welcome refugees arriving in Germany, police have said, a day after 12,200 asylum-seekers reached the city.

“We had a total of 12,200 refugees on Saturday ... today we’re expecting several hundreds. Given the numbers from yesterday, it is very clear that we have reached the upper limit of our capacity,” said a police spokesman.

“Our aim today would be to transport as many as possible out of here, to make place for new arrivals,” he added.

Munich has become a key arrivals point for refugees travelling to Germany by train through Hungary and Austria. Last weekend, about 20,000 migrants arrived at the city’s main railway station.

The president of the Upper Bavaria region, Christoph Hillenbrand, said he did not know “how we can cope”, according to the Bild am Sonntag tabloid, which headlined its article “Munich at the brink of collapse”.

Bavarian public television channel BR said the city “came very close to a humanitarian disaster”, although authorities managed to limit the numbers of people sleeping on mattresses on the floor to just a few dozen, rather than the hundreds as earlier feared.

Authorities are mulling whether to open up the Olympiahalle – a stadium used for the 1972 Olympics and which today serves as a concert hall or sports arena – as a temporary shelter for refugees.