At least 10 people have died, and others have been injured in a shooting attack at a school in the Austrian city of Graz, its mayor has said.
The gunman, whom police said they believed acted alone, was among those killed, Graz Mayor Elke Kahr, told the Austrian Press Agency (APA), calling the incident a “terrible tragedy”.
Ms Kahr said that many people were taken to hospitals with injuries.
The scene in Graz, Austria.
Kronen Zeitung newspaper said a suspect had reportedly been found dead in a bathroom, but that could not immediately be confirmed.
Austria’s Interior Ministry said there were several fatalities but did not say how many, while police said there were also injuries, without specifying a number.
Special forces were among those sent to the BORG Dreierschützengasse high school at 10am local time after reports of shots being heard.
At 11.30 am, police said on X that the school had been evacuated and everyone had been taken to a safe meeting point.
The situation was “secured”, they said and there was no longer believed to be any danger.
Police said several emergency services, a police helicopter and Cobra, a police tactical unit, have been deployed and they told parents to go to the ASKO Stadium, the home ground of local football club, ESK Graz, to meet their children.
Gunfire and screaming could be heard on footage posted on X purporting to be from the scene, as well as an injured person being carried to a helicopter by paramedics while pictures showed armed officers at the scene.
The mother of a child who survived the shooting relived the distressing moment her son called her “to say he was in school and that he was being shot and that he thought he was going to die”.
She said she has “only found out now, two hours later, that he’s still alive”.
The Austrian Red Cross told Sky News it had initiated its so-called ‘MANV system’, a protocol for dealing with a mass casualty incident.
All hospitals in the Styria state were alerted and had to report their available capacity.
Doctors from the state hospital (LKH) and accident hospital (UKH) were working on-site and two care- centres have been set up near the school to support those affected.
The service said 158 paramedics were on site, along with 31 crisis intervention staff, a number that is expected to rise, given the large number of people affected.
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A total of 65 emergency vehicles from eight districts in Styria are in operation, it said.
Graz is Austria’s second-largest city, and has a population of around 300,000.
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