Ten people were killed in a school shooting in the Austrian city of Graz on Tuesday, according to authorities.
The perpetrator was identified as a 21-year-old former student who did not graduate from the school, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon. He legally owned the two firearms used in the attack, police explained.
Mayor Elke Kahr, who initially said that eight people — seven students and one adult —were among the dead, described the event as a "terrible tragedy," the Austria Press Agency reported. Kahr said that many people were taken to hospitals with injuries.
The Austrian interior ministry previously confirmed there were several casualties, but has not revealed any further details.
State broadcaster ORF reported that students and teachers were among those injured. At least 30 people were admitted to hospital for treatment in relation to the shooting, with some seriously injured, the local press said.
The suspected perpetrator, reportedly a former student armed with a pistol and a shotgun, killed himself when approached by armed police officers.
A police operation was under way at the BORG high school on Dreierschuetzengasse street on Tuesday morning.
Graz Police spokesperson Sabri Yorgun said special Cobra units were among those sent to the high school after a call was received at 10 am, and that authorities were working to gain an overview of what had happened.
School closed until further notice
Other emergency services and a helicopter were dispatched to the scene.
At 11:30 am, police wrote on social network X that the school had been evacuated and everyone had been taken to a safe meeting point.
They wrote that the situation was "secured" and it was no longer believed to be any danger. Police later revealed the crime scene was secured within 17 minutes of the reports of a shooting.
The school will remain closed until further notice, authorities said.
Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said the shooting "is a national tragedy that deeply shocks our whole country."
"There are no words for the pain and grief that all of us — the whole of Austria — feel now," he wrote in a statement posted on X.
President Alexander Van der Bellen said that "this horror cannot be captured in words."
"These were young people who had their whole lives ahead of them. A teacher who accompanied them on their way," he said.
"Schools are symbols for youth, hope and the future," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X. "It is hard to bear when schools become places of death and violence."
Graz is a city of some 300,000 and is the capital of the southern Austrian province of Styria.
