The girl killed in a rubbish truck crash in Birkenhead yesterday was a teenage employee of company operating the rubbish removal round.

Police said the girl killed was Jane Lee Devonshire, 19, of West Harbour.

Acting Inspector Todd Moore-Carter said Jane was an employee of the truck company and was working on the waste removal round at the time of the crash.

Police said Jane's family are devastated and have asked for privacy as they grieve.

The driver of the truck remains in Auckland Hospital with moderate leg injuries.

The truck is in the final stages of being removed from the scene and will be towed away before undergoing a forensic examination.

Mr Moore-Carter said the Serious Crash Unit investigation will look at a number of factors in relation to the cause of the crash, including where Jane was when the crash occurred.

Meanwhile, a resident who rushed down the bank to the scene of the crash said a rubbish truck driver whose vehicle plummeted down a steep bank on Auckland's North Shore called out after the crash: "Where's the girl? Where's the girl?"

One person died and another was trapped, suffering moderate injuries, when the Onyx Group-operated truck crashed in Birkenhead yesterday.

Hebe Place resident Roy McKone said today that he rushed down to the scene after hearing an almighty crash yesterday.

When he got down the muddy bank to the truck, the trapped driver was saying: "Where's the girl? Where's the girl?"

A neighbour was at the scene holding the truck door open to try to help the driver out, Mr McKone said.

"Neither my neighbour or myself could see the girl. I had a look under the truck and saw absolutely nothing.

"It's just tragic."

He said neighbours thought a girl might have been the one who died but nothing had been confirmed.

Police would not confirm the ages or genders of the truck's occupants today.

Jillian Mitchell said it was at least the third time a heavy truck had gone over the bank into the bush in the 30 years the pair had lived there.

Once, a concrete mixer went over the side and another time a truck's handbrake failed while it was at the top of Hebe Place carrying a load of timber.

It went careening down the street and off the edge, she said.

"The road is way too narrow and way too hard for big vehicles to negotiate," she said.

As work to remove the truck continued today, thick mud and broken trees could be seen where the rubbish truck entered the bush.

Emergency services yesterday worked for hours to drag the truck out from its resting place, but the effort was deemed too dangerous as night fell.

Two heavy haulage trucks today attached thick cables to the truck, which went off the road at the intersection between Hebe Place and Kauri Rd -- into a valley between the two streets.

The tow truck workers cut down trees in preparation for bringing the truck up through the bush. Workers then began to winch the truck backwards up the muddy bank.

Trees were breaking as the truck was winched slowly up through the thick bush.

The truck's tyres sunk deeply into the mud as the crushed top of the cab became visible.

One of the tow truck drivers earlier told his colleague it was a tough job.

"It's done everything it can not to come up," he said.

Council pollution response officers earlier arrived on the scene for a quick update but left before the truck had been moved.

Inspector Todd Moore-Carter yesterday said the site was dangerous and unstable.

"The task of removing the truck is very challenging. It has gone down a very steep bank and slid around 25m onto it's side in thick bush."

The truck was contracted to Auckland Council for rubbish collection services.

It was picking up rubbish bags as part of its weekly collection when the accident occurred, council waste solutions manager Ian Stupple said.

Mr Stupple said the council had talked to Onyx yesterday, offering support and working with the team as well as police in the investigation.

He said the council would be looking into health and safety records and how Onyx has performed in the past.

It could take several weeks until the cause of the accident was known, he said.

"It's certainly not something that's common across refuse and recycling systems.

"Until we really know how and why it happened there's not much more we can say."

Mr Stupple said the names of the people in the truck had not been released to the council but it offered condolences to the family.

"It's clearly a tragic situation ...We'll continue to work with police and with Onyx to zone in on how it happened and why it happened and any learnings for the future," he said.

An Onyx Group spokesperson declined to comment.