People look at a derailed intercity train after an accident at Bretigny-sur-Orge train station near Paris in this picture provided by tgorguet via Instagram.

Reuters/AFP/Bretigny-Sur-Orge, France

At least six people died and a dozen were seriously injured when a train derailed and hit the platform at a station in central France yesterday, leaving several carriages torn and one lying on its side, officials said.

Local prefect Michel Fuzeau said nine of the 12 people injured were very seriously wounded, and Interior Minister Manuel Valls said the death toll would probably rise.

The train – a regional service that travels more slowly than France’s TGV express trains – veered off the track en route from Paris to the city of Limoges at the station of Bretigny-sur-Orge, 26km south of Paris.

“The death toll is evolving constantly at this point and unfortunately it will probably rise,” Valls said.

National rail operator SNCF said the train, travelling just as many French families were heading off on summer holidays, was carrying around 385 people and that an investigation was under way into what had happened.

“We do not know the cause of the derailment yet,” SNCF chairman Guillaume Pepy told reporters at the scene.

The train was not scheduled to stop at Bretigny-sur-Orge but passengers told local media the train nonetheless appeared to be travelling unusually fast as it approached the station.

TV images showed one of the carriages smashed against a platform at Bretigny-sur-Orge station. Trapped passengers were still being helped to safety.

“Most of the people who suffered minor injuries have been taken care of. We are going to have to empty the carriages completely to see if there are victims  (still inside) or not,” said local lawmaker Michel Pouzol.

The SNCF’s 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 said.

A clearly emotional Pepy expressed the rail company’s “solidarity with the victims and their families”.

“Rail catastrophes are something that upset everyone and all of those who are committed to our national rail service,” he said.

The prefect’s office said a “red alert” plan had been activated following the accident, which officials said happened at 5.14pm (1514 GMT), 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 told AFP.

“It was not a collision and it was not a problem with the speed,” a source with the SNCF told AFP.

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, an AFP reporter said.

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 occurred as many in France were departing for the start of their summer holidays. Travel to and from the Austerlitz station in Paris had been temporarily suspended.