A commuter train crashed into one of the busiest train stations in the New York area during the morning rush on Thursday, killing at least one person, injuring dozens of others and creating a scene of chaos and destruction, the authorities and witnesses said.

The crash occurred around 8:45 a.m., when a commuter train slammed into the Hoboken Terminal building, Jim Smith, a spokesman for New Jersey Transit, said. It came to a stop on a busy concourse near a waiting area as passengers inside the train scrambled to climb out of the windows.

“It’s just head-shaking,” Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on CNN. “Obviously, this train was traveling at a fairly high rate of speed.

Michael Larson, a New Jersey Transit worker, was in the station when the train crashed. He said he crawled on his hands and knees to pull people out of the first train car. Videos and photographs show the front of the train stopped beyond the tracks inside the station amid a jumble of mangled metal and hanging wires.

“The first car was pretty well destroyed,” Mr. Larson said. “The whole roof was caved in. The seats were broken.”

Mr. Larson, whose pant leg was bloodied, said that “by looking at the damage” he suspected there had been fatalities.

When the train arrived at the station, it went “over the bumper block, through the depot” and came to rest at the wall right before the station’s waiting area, Mr. Larson told reporters during a segment that was broadcast on CNN.

“One of the worst days I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Rail service was suspended into and out of the station, including service provided by the PATH system, which runs between Manhattan and New Jersey. Local buses and ferries began accepting New Jersey train tickets as a result of the accident, but ferry service to New York City from Hoboken was shut down at midday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said.

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