A commuter train crashed into a Hoboken, New Jersey, station during morning rush hour on Thursday, killing one person and injuring 108 others.
The train was traveling "at much too high rate of speed," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said at a news conference. Christie said there was no evidence it was "anything other than an accident."
The train crashed through a series of barriers and toppled an interior wall of the station just before 9 a.m. The No. 1614 on the Pascack Valley Line from Spring Valley, New York, ended up inside a passenger waiting area.
WNBC in New York reported it appeared the train crashed through the end of the line, riding over a bumper stop and plowing into the station.
Some of the steel beams holding up the canopy over the station were knocked down.
A woman standing on the platform was struck by debris and died, reported the TV station. There were conflicting reports about other possible fatalities as emergency crews worked to extricate victims from the mangled wreckage.
Passengers immediately took to social media, tweeting they were "lucky to be alive."
"It was going really fast, and the terminal was basically the brake for the train,” Nancy Bido, a passenger on the train, told WNBC.
“By the time I turned around and registered the train was coming, it had already completely crossed to the pedestrian walkway,” said Chris Mann, who was standing near the platform. “It all seemed to be very fast.”
“People were crying and one woman … was bleeding but a lot of people were still filing in unaware,” Mann said.
Rich Scardaville, who was aboard the train, described an “ungodly loud bang, like an explosion” before the lights went off and “everyone went flying,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
WNBC reported Bhagyesh Shah, who had boarded at Secaucus, was in the back of the train on this run.
"The next thing I know, we are plowing through the platform," he told the station. "It was for a couple seconds, but it felt like an eternity."
The aftermath was horrific, he told WNBC. "I saw a woman pinned under concrete. A lot of people were bleeding; one guy was crying."
He added that the train, which had four passenger cars and an engine car, was crowded — especially in the first and second cars which provide easy access to the terminal.
Nearby hospitals dispatched emergency responders.
Preliminary reports suggest the crash was accidental or caused by operator error, according to WNBC.
"We know what happened," said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. "We don't know why it happened."
Hoboken is New Jersey Transit's fifth-busiest station with 15,000 boardings per weekday. It is a point through which many commuters pass while transferring to routes into New York City.
WCBS reported WFAN anchor John Minko, a witness, said, "It simply did not stop. It went right through the barriers and into the reception area."
The terminal was shut down to all traffic, and the New York Daily News said the cause of the crash remained under investigation.
"It was horrifying to see," Alyson Hudson, a witness, told the News. "You could see the whole ceiling, it looks like it took the whole support beams down, the ceiling was coming down around it."
Another witness told Fox News it was a "train flying into the depot. I couldn't believe what I was seeing."