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Six people have been killed and 16 injured in a train accident on the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark, police said. Local media reports suggest a tarpaulin from a freight train hit a commuter train during a heavy storm, forcing it to brake suddenly.

The commuter train, running from Odense to the capital Copenhagen, was struck at about 08:00 local time (07:00 GMT). Police could not provide details but confirmed an object had hit the train. Images from the scene show containers on the freight train with their sides torn off.

Emergency services reportedly struggled to reach the passenger train in the bad weather, which came to a stop on the bridge. It had 131 passengers and three crew on board.

"There was a loud crash and the windows started smashing onto our heads," passenger Heidi Langberg Zumbusch told Danish broadcaster DR. "We flew down onto the floor, and then the train stopped." Ms Zumbusch said fellow passengers told her the side of the carriage in front of theirs had been ripped off. "We were lucky. The people in the carriage in front of us were not so lucky," she said.

Passengers waiting at Korsoer train station in Denmark after the accident closed the bridge
An emergency centre has been set up at the western end of the bridge in the town of Nyborg.

The bridge is closed to both cars and trains towards the island of Funen, but car traffic toward Zealand has now reopened. Tens of thousands of vehicles cross the bridge every day, and the storm had already caused several accidents on the road bridge earlier on Tuesday.

Denmark's capital city Copenhagen is on the island of Zealand, while the city of Odense lies on Funen to the west.