"Eight killed" in Sydney train crash

A train packed with commuters has derailed during rush hour outside Sydney, killing at least eight people and injuring at least 15 others.

All four of the train's cars lay crumpled. Workers were trying to rescue passengers from the cars in the rough terrain of a ravine 30km south of downtown Sydney.

"The scene can be only described similar to what we've seen in recent war movies ... where there are bodies just strewn around the scene," Westpac Lifesaver Helicoper spokesman Stephen Leahy said.

Doctors and paramedics were winched out of helicopters to reach the scene and at least three local hospitals put on standby to take casualties.

One survivor, 21-year-old Arnouska Zehalko, told her parents it was a scene of carnage.

"She just said there were people dead and injured everywhere," said Zehalko's mother Julie, who spoke to her daughter by mobile phone.

The train, heading out of Sydney, jumped the tracks while passing through the ravine near the village of Waterfall.

Television images showed the front of the lead car crumpled, apparently after hitting a steel electrical pole on the side of the tracks. The next car was damaged from smashing into the first.

The two back cars were on their sides, but did not show great damage.

A major highway near the crash were closed to traffic so emergency services helicopters could land near the wreckage.

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