The girls, many of whom were from Manurewa High School in Auckland, were shown punching and kicking each other, as two police officers tried desperately to drag them away from each other.

A bystander recorded the brawl on a mobile phone camera, and the footage was uploaded to Facebook on Thursday night. It has since been viewed more than 100,000 times.

Inspector Julia Lynch, from New Zealand Police, described the fight as "disgusting" and said young people were increasingly using private Facebook pages to organise crimes.

"It's concerning these things are happening. We've got young people going into social media, connecting, organising other crimes, doing ram-raids, robberies," she said.

"With social media, it's instantaneous. They're evolving and going on social media and it's happening very quickly."

Counties Manukau police spokeswoman Shelley Nahr said the fight, took place on Browns Road in Manurewa, a suburb of South Auckland, at 1.30pm on Thursday.

She said a group of between 40 and 60 students had met on Browns Road, before the fight broke out between a number of those gathered there.

The footage initially shows two girls fighting and, as a police officer attempts to separate them, a group of female bystanders advances and begins kicking the girls on the ground.

The violence quickly escalates, with kicks and punches flying in all directions.

One girl is shown lying on top of another and repeatedly hitting her with both fists as her victim writhes on the ground, while a police officer can be seen dragging another girl away by her shoulders and neck.

The two police officers who originally responded to the fight quickly called for back-up as the violence escalated, Ms Nahr said.

One of the girls involved in the fight was referred to Youth Aid, she said, adding that no one was seriously injured.

Manurewa High School deputy principal Pete Jones told the New Zealand Herald that he had watched the footage, which made him feel "sick".

"I've seen the footage ... and it's horrible. As a parent, as a teacher, as a member of the community, you just don't want to see that happening," he said.

"You see them when they get into that state, that red mist, it's very difficult to break someone away from that and you saw that by the things that were happening on the video. Horrible, and it makes you sick. I'm really sad to be here in these circumstances."

Senior students had been on study leave this week, coming in to the school only to sit exams.

Many people posted their disgust online after the footage was uploaded to Facebook.

"Get to school and learn to respect yourselves!" one person wrote.

Another said: "Bro these chick's need to grow up and get a life. This kinda crap is damn right embarrassing, especially for their school. The only place they are gonna end up is in jail. Act like a women not like a wannabe hoodster!!"

Police are continuing to investigate.

Fairfax Media