Students killed in gun rampage
Published: 11:03 AM September 23, 2008
SEVERAL students are reported to have died after a crazed 20-year-old gunman fired numerous shots in a vocational high school in Finland.
The attacker, a student at the school, has now been disarmed.
Superintendent Jussi Muotio of the Kauhajoki police said: "The incident is over now."
He added that authorities did know if the gunman has killed anyone, but they feared that "several have been wounded".
Terrified students were evacuated as shots were heard from inside school buildings in Kauhajoki, 120 miles from Helsinki.
Local journalist Timo Huovinen reported that a video apparently posted by the gunman had been found on video sharing website YouTube.
Clips of a man in a leather jacket firing a gun were uploaded hours before the shooting.
The posting included a message saying "life is pain. And you will fight alone in your personal war."
The Kauhajoki Palvelualojen Oppilaitos, where the shooting occurred, is a vocational college for students aged 16 and over.
Around 200 students were in the school building when the gunman began to attack.
The shooting comes less than a year after a massacre at a Finnish high school in Jokela, north of Helsinki.
On November 7, 2007, 18-year-old student Pekka-Eric Auvinen shot six students, the school's headmistress and a nurse before turning his gun on himself.