New Jersey crash: At least 1 dead, 100 injured as Hoboken commuter train slams into station platform

A US commuter train has crashed into a station in Hoboken, New Jersey, killing at least one and destroying the platform. The death toll is expected to rise with at least 108 people reported injured.

TV footage and images from the crash have been shared on social media showing extensive structural damage to the station and a similarly damaged train carriage. As a result the rail service was suspended in and out of Hoboken, seven miles from New York City.

According to WABC more than 100 patients were being treated by New Jersey medical sources. However, the extent of their injuries is unclear.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie confirmed the one fatality while hospitals in the area say at least 70 perople were injured with three of them in a serious condition.

He is due to hold a press conference alongside New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who cancelled a trip to Israel for Shimon Peres's funeral, later on Thursday.

The state's transit authority has reported that a number appear to be trapped by the worst structural damage at the station.

Emergency responders are at the scene. A dozen ambulances were treating victims who were being wheeled away on stretchers.

Associated Press reported that the train failed to stop at the end of the platform and went straight through the barriers into a reception area. The train came to a standstill in a space between the indoor waiting area and the platform. A metal structure covering the area collapsed as the train ran into it.

Investigations, which local transport authorities have stressed are preliminary, suggest the crash on the Pascack Valley Line involving train No. 1614 was accidental or was the result of an operator error.

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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie confirmed at least one fatality in the crash and explained the train appeared to have been speeding when it smashed into the platform. "The one thing we do know is that obviously that it was travelling at a fairly high rate of speed."

Christie added the engineer of the train was being treated in hospital and would be questioned about the circumstances of the crash.

One passenger, Leon Offengenden, told CNN the train completely failed to slow down as it entered the station. "The front car is essentially off the rails ... into the building of the station, with the roof sort of collapsed around it," he was quoted as saying."The lights went out and a few people screamed."

"Now, looking back, I guess it didn't slow down. It definitely didn't slow down. There was no brakes. All of a sudden, it just crashed. Something happened obviously. ... It's the same feeling as when you get in a car crash," he added.

William Blaine, an engineer said he was in the station when he heard an explosion.

"I looked to the right and I just saw people laying down, I saw debris flying and then I saw the train," he said. "What bothered me was I ended up stepping over a dead woman's body," he said, according to The Telegraph.

The station at Hoboken is the last stop for a number of lines running on the east coast of the United States.