At least one person is confirmed dead and more than 100 others are injured after a New Jersey Transit train rammed into a platform at the Hoboken Station Thursday morning.

Jasmine Scharlin, 21, a NJCU psychology major who was at the train station during the crash said, “I was on the other side of the station when it hit, but heard a huge boom noise and witnessed debris collapsing near where the train hit.”

The crash occurred at 8:45 a.m. during the area’s morning rush-hour. News reports say the train collided at a rapid speed into a bumper barricade, striking and killing a person who was on the platform, and destroying part of the station’s interior and damaging its roof.

Many speculations have arisen regarding the accident’s cause. Scharlin said, “A worker at the station said it was a mechanical malfunction that caused the crash.”

Several news outlets have reported that the crash may have been caused by human error. The train’s conductor was found unresponsive at the scene, and has been hospitalized, according to news reports.

On an average weekday, nearly 30,000 people travel through the Hoboken Terminal. Many commuters are NJCU students, staff or faculty members.

Kimberly Castellano, a senior psychology major at NJCU who works as a teacher’s assistant at the A. Harry Moore School on John F. Kennedy Blvd., said, “It is insane. I was so surprised and scared for the safety of students and their parents.”

Vania Duran, a senior majoring in English who works in Hoboken, said, “We were pretty scared. I work as a nanny and the mother of the child was frightened and thought that it was a terrorist attack.”

NJCU’s campus minister, Lawrence Laurente, 25, from Belleville, NJ, often takes the same train which crashed on Thursday. “It’s crazy because I take that same train into Hoboken when I sleep at my girlfriend’s house in New Milford. It’s so surreal because just a couple of days ago I was there. I can’t believe this actually happened.”

Laurente, a Seton Hall graduate who works as a minister for the Archdiocese of Newark, offered his prayers for his students at NJCU, and at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, where he also works. He said, “I’m concerned about my students; a lot of them have internships in New York City, and take the train or pass through there. I pray they are not affected by the crash.”

Gothic Times staff members Amber Vaughn, Elena Zeman and Emmanuel Lebron contributed to this report. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Leckstrom.