PRAGUE, August 8, 2008 (AFP) - An express train crashed into a collapsed road bridge in the Czech Republic on Friday killing at least six people and injuring 31, rescue services said.

The train was travelling at about 140 kilometers (85 miles) an hour when it hit debris and derailed near Studenka in the northwest of the country, said a Czech railways spokesman.

The locomotive and six passenger carriages came off the tracks and were left a mass of twisted metal.

There were about 400 people on the train at the time, including a large group heading for a music festival in the central Czech town of Pardubice, the CT television station reported.

'It's horrible. It's a disaster,' said police spokeswoman Miroslava Michalkova-Salkova.

Regional emergency services spokesman Lukas Humpl gave a revised casualty toll of five women and one man dead, and 31 people injured, 13 critically.

Police had earlier said there were 10 dead and about 100 hurt.

The injured were taken to about 10 hospitals in the region, authorities said.

The EuroCity express was travelling from Krakow in Poland to Prague when it crashed at about 10:30 am (0830 GMT) near Studenka.

A Czech railways spokesman, Jan Kucera, said the train was travelling at 140 kilometres an hour when it hit part of a road bridge which was being rebuilt and had fallen on to the track.

'There's a lot of damage,' he said.

However a fire brigade spokesman quoted by the Czech national television CT said the bridge collapsed on to the leading carriages of the train as it was passing underneath.

Sixteen fire brigade units with 30 vehicles had been sent to the scene, along with ambulances and helicopters to ferry the injured to local hospitals.