A train collision in Indonesia's West Java province on Friday killed four people and injured 42, local police said, as authorities investigated the cause of the crash.

Video images from broadcasters MetroTV and Kompas TV showed passengers being helped out of train carriages, some of which had gone off the rails entirely.

The four dead were crew members, said Ibrahim Tompo, a spokesperson for West Java province police, adding that a total of 478 passengers were aboard the trains.

Two crew members had died after they were squeezed between carriages, Ibrahim said.

"But one body still could not be evacuated because it was still buried in the debris from the cars," he said.

Ambulances gathered to take the injured to hospital, police said, following the collision at 6:03 am (1103 GMT) near the provincial capital of Bandung.

The cause of the crash not immediately clear, but train operator PT KAI and the provincial government have said they will investigate, along with transport safety officials.

Land transport accidents are common in Indonesia. A train crash in 2010 killed 36 people, the deadliest in recent years.

In December last year, a commuter line hit a car near Bandung, killing five people while in November, 11 people died after a collision between a train and a minibus in East Java province.