BREAKING NEWS: School shooting in Kauhajoki - Nine dead, many injured

Man enters school armed with automatic pistol and opens fire on class of adult students before turning gun on himself

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Nine people, all students, have been killed in a shooting incident at a vocational school in Kauhajoki in Western Finland. Several others have been injured.
      Details are still sketchy, but apparently a 22-year-old man dressed in black and wearing a ski-mask entered the school carrying a large bag, and opened fire on students at around 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
      An eyewitness spoke of many rounds of automatic fire in a ground-floor classroom containing adult students taking an exam.
      Police at the scene immediately reported several fatalities, but the true death-toll was only made clear some hours after the incident.
     
The building has been evacuated, and the gunman - thought to have acted alone - has apparently shot himself, and is believed to have been rushed to hospital in Tampere with serious head injuries.
      Initial reports said he was among the dead, but this was later denied.
     
Around 150 students and staff-members were in the building at the time.
      Part of the school caught fire, for as yet unknown reasons, but firefighters put the blaze out.
     
The tragic incident is bound to reopen wounds from last November's hugely traumatic shooting at Jokela High School, when a deranged youth killed eight before turning his gun on himself.
     
In a grim reminder of what happened in Jokela in November last year, reports are already surfacing of videos on YouTube allegedly depicting a young man from Kauhajoki firing pistols at a shooting range.
      As is now all too well known, a similar connection was made with the young man who opened fire at Jokela High School.
     
Members of the Finnish government have met in special session to assess the situation. The Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE reports that Education Minister Sari Sarkomaa, Minister of the Interior Anne Holmlund, and Minister of Health and Social Services Paula Risikko are meeting to discuss the shooting in Kauhajoki. The chairs of the various parliamentary groups as well as police and other officials are also be present.
      The college in Kauhajoki - part of the campus of the Seinäjoki Vocational Training Centre - has now been cordoned off, and media representatives are being kept some 200 metres from the site of the shooting.
      The Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE has also reported that police are currently investigating whether there might be a bomb planted in another building close to the vocational school. It was thought that the gunman may have been carrying explosives as well as the small-calibre automatic pistol he used to shoot his victims.
      A number of ambulances and other emergency vehicles were still parked outside the school at 14:20 on Tuesday afternoon.
     
      We shall naturally update the fast-moving story as more news arrives.

More on this subject:
 Details emerging of YouTube videos and connection with Kauhajoki shooting
 Police knew of Internet threats on Monday - suspect interviewed but released

Helsingin Sanomat