(Updates with police news conference)

By Paul Majendie and David Clarke

LONDON, Feb 23 (Reuters) - An elderly woman was killed and five people were seriously injured when a high-speed London-to-Glasgow train was derailed in northwest England late on Friday, police said.

Firemen working in torrential rain were for a time unable to reach many passengers trapped in overturned train carriages, because of live power lines on the track.

But a spokesman for Virgin Trains said later all had been taken off the state-of-the-art Pendolino tilting train, which crashed at a speed of 95 mph (150 kph) and slipped down an embankment.

Police Superintendent John Rush told a news conference an elderly woman died and five people were seriously injured.

Asked about the cause of the crash, he said: "We are unsure how that exactly has happened." Media reports of a broken rail or a landslip could not be confirmed. Rush said the line would be closed for up to six days.

"You were suddenly aware of a jolt and the train started swaying really quite dramatically," BBC executive Caroline Thomson, a passenger, told BBC News 24 Television. She said the train then flipped over and came to rest on its side.

"The emergency vehicles are coming up and there are a lot of flashing lights. One carriage is lying quite dramatically ... off the line," she said from the scene, in farmland near the town of Kendal on the edge of the Lake District.

Royal Air Force Sea king helicopters ferried the injured to hospital. Twelve ambulances and 80 firefighters were rushed to the scene of the crash.

Firemen searched through the overturned carriages with thermal imaging equipment.

Police cordoned off the area and helped scores of "walking wounded" who first took refuge in local farms.

A Virgin spokesman told Sky News: "This is the first incident involving a Pendolino train and we have to very quickly understand why this has happened." But he said there was no question of withdrawing the trains from service.

The Pendolino (Italian for "tilting") was developed in Italy by Fiat Ferroviaria, which was bought by French firm Alstom <ALSO.PA> in 2000. Virgin uses Pendolinos on its mainline routes.

Virgin Trains is 49 percent-owned by British bus and train operator Stagecoach Group Plc <SGC.L> and 51 percent by Richard Branson's Virgin Group <VA.UL>.

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