France was razing parts of the "Jungle" migrant camp for a second day Tuesday while thousands of refugees were blocked in Greece as ­Europe strained to contain the flood of desperate people at its borders.

An overnight downpour left stranded refugees shivering in the mud on the Greek border with Macedonia as the UN said over 131,000 migrants had ­entered Europe via the Mediterranean in 2016 so far.

This is more than in the first five months of 2015, when Europe's biggest wave of refugees since World War II plunged the continent into a crisis which many fear threatens the very core of the European project.

In the northern French port city of Calais, tensions were high as workers continued dismantling the southern half of the "Jungle" camp, which has become a magnet for refugees hoping to reach Britain.

Roving teams were trying to convince the inhabitants to leave of their own volition and move to better accommodation provided for them, but many fear it will take them further from their goal of reaching Britain, with clashes erupting on Monday.

"We have already seen ­prison and torture," a migrant told one of the teams.

While the "Jungle" has ­become a cause célèbre for activists, the crisis there pales in comparison to the situation along the Greek-­Macedonian border where more than 7,000 people are stranded ­after ­Balkans states imposed a daily limit on the number of ­migrants allowed to enter.

Increasingly desperate, some tried to force their way across the frontier on Monday but were tear-gassed by Macedonian police, prompting a sharp rebuke from the EU, which said it was "not our idea of managing the crisis."

In a bid to ease some of the deep divisions which have emerged over the crisis, EU President Donald Tusk set off Tuesday on a tour of Vienna, the Balkan states and Turkey.

At the Idomeni border camp in Greece, where thousands of refugees are camped, an overnight downpour left their tents drenched and children coughing miserably.

With Austria and Balkan states capping the numbers of migrants entering their territory, there has been a swift buildup along the Greece-Macedonia border with Athens warning that the number of people "trapped" could reach up to 70,000 in March.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose own country is a favored destination of many of the refugees and registered 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015, has criticized the migrant cap being imposed.

UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein denounced the growing border restrictions as "an act of cruelty" saying instead of receiving compassion, desperate refugees were facing a "rising roar of xenophobia."