At least one person was killed and scores were injured Thursday when a commuter train slammed into a rail station and crashed onto a concourse, authorities said.

Photos from the scene show a crumpled New Jersey Transit rail car at the battered station amid mangled steel, cables and concrete. The crash occurred during morning rush at about 8:30 a.m. ET.

"The train came into the station at a high rate of speed and crashed through all the barriers," said Gov. Chris Christie, who toured the site hours after the wreck. "This was an extraordinary tragedy."

Christie said it was too early to determine the cause of the crash or why the train failed to slow down. He said the train's engineer was critically injured but was cooperating with investigators. The lone fatality was a woman standing on the platform who was hit by debris, he said, adding that 108 people were injured.

Christie credited first responders and some passengers with rushing to the aid of the injured in the chaotic moments that followed the crash. Passenger Jamie Weatherhead-Saul said people on the train realized it was moving too fast as it approached the station.

“It didn’t stop. It didn’t slow down,” Weatherhead-Saul said. “The train just kept going.”

She said she was between the first and second cars and heard people screaming from the first car. She was shaken up but not injured and was able to exit the train after a conductor lifted an emergency latch.

The roof over the train platform collapsed, bringing rain water and live electrical wires into contact with the train and frustrating efforts to rescue people, said William Blaine, a rail engineer who was in the station at the time.

(USAToday)