SAN FRANCISCO - A man was struck and killed by a train at a station of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in the US city of San Francisco on Saturday, resulting in the disruption of the service throughout the system for a few hours, local media reported.

BART spokeswoman Cheryl Stalter said the person was pinned under a train and was killed early Saturday morning, without disclosing the identity of the victim.

The accident caused a major delay in downtown San Francisco, while the direct service into the city center from another two lines was also suspended.

"Stn closure at POWL due to a major medical emergency, trains will not be stopping at POWL stn," the BART authorities said via the official Twitter account.

The last similar incident was reported in August this year when a person on the tracks at BART's Bay Fair station was killed. The incident prompted a nearly two-hour closure of the Bay Fair station with only single-tracked train services maintained during the closure.

BART is a main rail transportation system for the San Francisco Bay Area, a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun estuaries in California.

About 7.68 million people live in the nine-county Bay Area which contains many cities, towns, airports, as well as regional, state and national parks.

An average 430,000 trips were recorded on weekdays for the BART system, and about 129 million people choose it as their daily commute service every year.