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Students were sitting in a classroom at Glaz Secondary School when a 21-year-old Austrian man shot nine people before committing suicide.
12 people were injured in the violence Tuesday morning, and one died of injuries several hours later.
The incident is the most deadly mass shooting in Austria’s recent history, with the country declared three days of mourning.
Police are still investigating why the gunman, a former student who never graduated, attacked.
This is what we know so far.
what happened?
The first shot passed through Dreielschusgas Secondary School, northwest of Glaz, near the main station, around 10:00 local time (09:00 BST) and initially caused confusion about what was going on.
According to the Kleine Zeitung newspaper, “Was it a shot? That’s not true. Something must have fallen on a construction site across the street.
One student told Die Presse that his teacher immediately locked the classroom when the shot rang.
Another student told the paper that at first he thought the shot was a firecracker, but then he screamed and we ran.
Paul Nitche, a school’s religious studies teacher, told AFP News Agency that he was in the classroom when he heard the “van.”
“Something snapped into me, I decided to jump up and run,” he said.
He got a glimpse of the shooter as he escaped. “As I ran down the stairs, I thought to myself, ‘This isn’t the real thing.’
He said he noticed something happened when he saw the student lying on the floor and the teacher was there.
Astrid, a local resident who lives in the building next to the school, told the BBC he had heard 30 or 40 shots. Her husband Franz called the police.
“We saw a student in the window – he seemed ready to pop out… but he went back inside,” Franz said.
The couple later said they saw students “leave from the first floor of the school and ‘collected on the street’ from the other side,” Franz said.
The shooter took away his life in the school bathroom shortly after the gun attack, authorities said.
The first emergency call arrived at police just at 10:00, and the first patrol arrived at the scene at 10:06, police said Wednesday. Shortly afterwards, Cobra Tactical Units, as well as other specialized units, were arrived, handling attack and hostage situations.
Police controlled the situation in 17 minutes. A total of over 300 police officers have been deployed to the school.
Gunshots are heard and students are evacuated with video filmed at an Austrian school
Who is the victim?
Police say nine students between the ages of 14 and 17, between the ages of 14 and 17 — six girls and three boys — were killed in the shooting. The teacher died of injuries in the hospital.
All were Austrian except for one Polish citizen.
The victim has not yet been named by the authorities.
A woman with Torres told BBC News in Main Square in Glaz on Wednesday that she knew one of the dead boys. He was 17 years old.
“I had known this family for a long time and, including the family’s son, I knew he attended that school. I immediately asked if everything was okay and they informed me that the boy was one of the people who were slaughtered,” she said.
“What happened yesterday is totally terrible and Austria is in mourning,” she said. “This is terrible for Austria as a whole.”
The other 11 injured are now at risk, police said Wednesday. They are between 15 and 26 years old. Eight from Austria, two from Romania and the other from Iran.
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What do you know about Shooter?
The 21-year-old, who has not yet been named, was an Austrian man from the wider Glaz region who acted alone, police said.
He lived with a single mother, also an Austrian, in the Glaz Mgeven area, police said in a press release Wednesday.
His father, from Armenia, has not lived in the same household since separation.
He is a former Dreielschzengas student who did not graduate from school, and Home Minister Gerhard Kerner said at a press conference Tuesday.
In a statement Wednesday, police said it appears they have abandoned plans for the bomb attack while searching for the suspect’s home “farewell letter,” “fair video,” a sensual pipe bomb.
He legally owned the pistol and shotgun used in the attack, police added.
Police said they are still investigating possible motives.
What is Austrian gun law?
According to the independent research project, Small Arms Survey, Austria is one of Europe’s most armed civilians, with an estimated 30 firearms per 100 people.
Machine guns and pump action guns are prohibited, but revolvers, pistols and semi-automatic weapons are permitted with official approval only. Rifles and shotguns are permitted to have firearm licenses or valid hunting licenses, or members of traditional shooting clubs.
School shootings are rare. Over the years, there have been several incidents where the number of casualties has fallen much less.
In 2018, the 19-year-old was shot dead in 2012 by another young man from Mistelbach in northern Winneine. In the northern part of St. Porten, his father was shot dead in 1997. Saern, 15, killed another teacher in 1993.
Massive shootings at schools have resulted in more than four deaths except for the murderer, but even rarer outside the United States. Mass shooting at Graz is only the eighth in Europe since 2000.
In recent years, Austria’s most violent gun attack took place in central Vienna in November 2020. Four people were killed and 22 injured as convicted jihadists ran through the city centre before the police were eventually shot dead.
Tuesday’s shootings have now become almost a decade after three people were killed when a man drove into a crowd in Glaz on June 20, 2015.
Fanny Gasser, a journalist for Austrian daily newspaper Kronen Zeitung, told BBC News that the school is likely not ready for the possibility of an attack.
“We don’t live in America, we live in Austria. This seems like a very safe space.”
