One person has been killed and five others injured in a shooting at a subway station in New York City, authorities in the United States’s biggest city have said.

Gunfire broke out after an argument between two groups of teenagers at a train platform in the Bronx on Monday as office workers and students were beginning their evening commute, according to authorities.

Police said a 34-year-old man was killed, with the wounded including a 14-year-old girl, a 15-year-old boy and a 71-year-old.

Police said they were searching for at least one shooter, although they had not ruled out the possibility that more than one person was involved.

“We don’t believe this was a random shooting. We don’t believe this was just an individual shooting indiscriminately onto a train. We believe this shooting all stemmed from a dispute between two groups that started on a train,” police transit chief Michael Kemper said during a news conference.

Television news earlier showed a major emergency response at the elevated Mount Eden Avenue subway station, about 14km (9 miles) north of Manhattan’s Times Square, and a subway train stopped at the station.

Witness Efrain Feliciano, 61, told Daily News there were “bullets flying everywhere”.

“I saw sparkles as the bullets hit the wall,” Feliciano was quoted as saying. “A woman was holding a child screaming.”

Gun violence is common in the US compared with other developed countries, although New York City is safer than other major urban centres and shootings on the city’s subway system are rare.