PHOTO: Forensic officers stand behind the truck containing a large number of dead migrants by a highway in eastern Austria.
As many as 50 migrants have been found dead inside a parked truck on a highway in Austria, according to police.
The 7.5-tonne truck, which is reported to contain between 20 and 50 bodies, was found on the parking strip of the A4 eastern highway near the Hungarian border, police spokesman Hans Peter Doskozil said.
Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner called it "a dark day" and underscored Vienna's demand that the European Union adopt a way to distributethe increasing wave of migrants fairly so that they would not have to turn to human traffickers.
"This tragedy affects us all deeply," Ms Mikl-Leitner said.
"Human traffickers are criminals. Anyone still thinking that they're kind helpers cannot be helped."
It was not immediately clear how the migrants had died or how long they had been there.
The truck had Hungarian number plates, a Hungarian official said.
Investigations were underway in Austria and Hungary after the bodies were discovered.
The gruesome find comes as German chancellor Angela Merkel and Balkan leaders are meeting in Vienna to seek how to tackle the biggest migration crisis to hit Europe since World War II.
Ms Merkel told a news conference at the summit: "We are of course all shaken by the appalling news.
"This reminds us that we must tackle quickly the issue of immigration and in a European spirit — that means in a spirit of solidarity — and to find solutions."
This year has seen record numbers of people trying to reach the European Union by sea and land as they flee conflict in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
"This is a signal on the European level to act as quickly as possible here," Ms Merkel said, adding that controls on international trains and border areas had been stepped up.
Ahead of the conference, Austria's foreign minister Sebastian Kurz warned that his country would consider introducing tougher anti-migration measures including "much tighter border controls", if the EU failed to come up with a unified response.
"Austria has more migrants than Italy and Greece combined ... so we shouldn't pretend that only Italy and Greece are affected," he said.
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