At least 20 injured after high-speed train derails in France

A local official said a land slip appeared to be to blame

Gendarmes arrive near the site where the high-speed train derailed. AFP

At least 20 people were injured including one seriously after a high-speed train derailed in France on Thursday morning.

Police and emergency services rushed to the scene of the accident, which happened at 0745 local time near Ingenheim in the Bas-Rhin area. The train, which had 348 on board, derailed between Strasbourg in eastern France and Paris.

"The initial assessment is that there is one wounded person who is an extremely urgent case, and 20 people who are being treated as relatively urgent cases," the local government said.

A land slip appeared to have caused the accident, a local law enforcement official told Reuters.

The state rail company SNCF said on Twitter that the train driver was "seriously injured" and evacuated by helicopter.

Alexandre Sergeant, a passenger on the train, told BFM television: "We are all a bit shaken. There are people crying, some have back pains."

Other trains were being re-routed and there was no interruption to services, a spokesman for the state rail company SNCF said.

In 2015, a TGV derailed on the Paris-Strasbourg line during a test run prior to the line's entry into service, killing 11 people.

That crash dealt a setback to the rollout of high-speed rail lines that are a symbol of French pride and intended to help support economic growth beyond the capital.