At least six people died and a dozen were seriously injured when a train en route from Paris derailed at a station platform in central France, as many French families were heading off on summer holidays. Rough cut (no reporter narration).
A HIGH-SPEED train has derailed and hit a station platform just south of Paris, killing at least six people and injuring many more, France's worst rail accident in 25 years.
Witnesses said the site of the crash resembled ''a war zone'', with one survivor describing walking over a decapitated body to escape an overturned carriage.
Rescuers were searching into the night for passengers who might be trapped in the wreckage.
The train was a regional service heading from Paris to the west-central city of Limoges.
A packed passenger train skidded off its rails after leaving Paris on Friday. Picture: AP
It derailed as it passed through the station at Bretigny-sur-Orge, about 25 kilometres south of Paris.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, speaking from the accident site late on Friday, told reporters: ''The toll is currently six dead, 30 injured, of whom eight are in a serious condition.''
The injured were all being treated in local hospitals, he added.
Rescue workers work alongside a derailed carriage after a train accident in Bretigny-sur-Orge, France. Picture: Getty Images
The head of the SNCF rail service, Guillaume Pepy, told reporters at the scene that six carriages had derailed during the accident.
The train's third and fourth carriages derailed first and the others followed, he added.
Clearly shaken, he expressed the rail company's ''solidarity with the victims and their families''.
The scene where a train derailed, at the station, in Bretigny sur Orge, south of Paris. Picture: AP
''Rail catastrophes are something that upset everyone and all of those who are committed to our national rail service,'' he said.
''We don't yet know the reasons for this derailment,'' Pepy said.
The rail service, judicial authorities and France's BEA safety agency would each be investigating.
Survivors of the train crash are aided by emergency crew. Picture: AP
Passenger Marc Cheutin, 57, told AFP he had to ''step over a decapitated person'' after the accident to exit the carriage he had been travelling in.
''Shortly after departure, just as I was getting into my book, we felt a first shock that shook the carriage I was in.... Then there was a second shock and the carriage lifted up, then a third and a fourth and the carriage went over on its side,'' he said.
A witness who had been waiting for a train at the station, Vianey Kalisa, told AFP: ''I saw a lot of wounded people, women and children trapped inside (the carriages).
Rescue workers evacuate an injured passenger at the site of the train accident . Picture: AP
''I was shaking like a child. People were screaming. One man's face was covered in blood. It was a like a war zone.''
In the immediate aftermath of the accident, dazed survivors, some in blood-stained clothing, stood near mangled train wagons and the crushed remains of a station platform.
Director of security at SNCF Alain Krakovitch praised the quick reaction of the train driver.
A derailed wagon in the railway station of Bretigny-sur-Orge on July 12, 2013 near Paris. Picture: Kenzo Tribouillard
''He felt jolts entering the station and applied the regulation measures in the space of a few seconds, which is to say a radio warning signal and a light warning signal,'' thus stopping all traffic in the area.
His quick thinking avoided any collision with approaching trains, Krakovitch told reporters.
Earlier in the evening French President Francois Hollande visited the scene and met officials.
A derailed wagon at Bretigny-sur-Orge, near Paris.The accident resulted in "many casualties", authorities said. Picture: Kenzo Tribouillard
He confirmed that three investigations were underway, but added: ''We should avoid unnecessary speculation. What happened will eventually be known and the proper conclusions will be drawn.''
Officials said the derailment happened at 5.14pm local time, minutes after the intercity train left the Paris-Austerlitz station.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls said nine people have been gravely injured. Many passengers were believed to be trapped inside wrecked carriages that were lying on their sides after the accident.
French president Francois Hollande, left, speaks with French Junior Minister for Transports and Maritime Economy Frederic Cuvillier, second right, and France's national rail company SNCF head, Guillaume Pepy, second left, at the site of the train accident. Picture: AP
"The toll at this stage is constantly evolving and will be heavier,'' Mr Valls told reporters in Nimes.
Some 300 firefighters, 20 medical teams and eight helicopters were deployed to get the hundreds of survivors out of the wreck, according to the Interior Ministry.
Around 190 people were being treated for injuries or shock.
An injured passenger is evacuated from the crash site. Picture: AP
Officials didn't comment on reports that some passengers may still be trapped on the train.
It was unclear whether all the casualties were inside the train, or whether some had been on the platform, or how fast the train was traveling.
The local prefect's office said at least six people had died and 12 injured, including nine in a serious condition.
French President Francois Hollande, right, speaks with survivors at the site of a train accident. Picture: AP
"The train was unrecognisable. There was nothing but metal scraps," 20-year-old accounting apprentice Ben Khelifa told The Associated Press. His commuter train was on the adjacent track.
"The train just collapsed, just like that, on its side... There was blood."
He added that he was one of a number of passengers in the adjacent train that went to help pull trapped survivors out of the wreckage.
"People were screaming, people were asking where their children were," he said.
Another witness, Bazgua El Mehdi, 19, told Le Parisien newspaper: "I heard a loud noise. A cloud of sand covered everything. Then the dust dissipated. I thought it was a freight train, but then we saw the first casualties ... Many passengers on the (train) were crying."
The prefect's office said a "red alert'' plan had been activated following the accident, which officials said happened at 5.14 pm (1.14am AEST), minutes after the intercity train left the Paris-Austerlitz station.
The cause of the accident was not immediately known, but sources said part of the train split and rolled on its side as it arrived at the station.
"The train arrived at the station at high speed. It split in two for an unknown reason. Part of the train continued to roll while the other was left on its side on the platform,'' a police source said.
"It was not a collision and it was not a problem with the speed,'' a source with the SNCF said.
Bretigny Mayor Bernard Decaux told newspaper Le Parisien there was chaos at the station.
"Everyone is running in every direction, there is panic,'' he said.
''It is an apocalyptic scene. We are trying to organise things.''
Dozens of emergency and police vehicles had arrived at the scene and a security cordon was set up around the station.
Rescue helicopters had been deployed and all Paris region hospital had been put on alert to deal with the wounded, officials said.
Photographs of the accident posted on social networks showed a train carriage that had apparently derailed and risen onto the platform, tearing down a section of the station's roof as it moved forward.
The accident came as France is preparing to celebrate its most important national holiday, Bastille Day, on Sunday, and as masses of vacationers are heading out of Paris and other big cities to see family or on summer vacation.
Travel to and from the Austerlitz station in Paris had been temporarily suspended.
A passenger speaking on France's BFM television said the train was going at a normal speed and wasn't meant to stop at Bretigny-sur-Orge. He described children unattended in the chaotic aftermath.
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