logo
Eight killed, others injured in Austrian school shooting

Eight killed, others injured in Austrian school shooting

Japan Todaya day ago

At least eight people were killed when a shooter opened fire at a school in the Austrian city of Graz on Tuesday, and others were injured, Kronen Zeitung newspaper reported.
Citing local police, Austrian state media including national broadcaster ORF said several people had been seriously injured, including students and teachers.
Police said an operation was under way in a street in the Austrian capital called Dreierschuetzengasse, on which there is a secondary school, but declined further comment.
Police were evacuating the building, ORF said.
It was not immediately clear whether the suspect was among the victims. Kronen Zeitung said a suspect had reportedly been found dead in a bathroom, but the report could not immediately be confirmed by Reuters.
© (Thomson Reuters 2025.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

A former student opens fire at an Austrian school, killing 10 and taking his own life
A former student opens fire at an Austrian school, killing 10 and taking his own life

The Mainichi

time27 minutes ago

  • The Mainichi

A former student opens fire at an Austrian school, killing 10 and taking his own life

GRAZ, Austria (AP) -- A former student opened fire at a school in Austria's second-biggest city Tuesday, killing 10 people and wounding 12 others before taking his own life, authorities said. There was no immediate information on the motive of the 21-year-old man, who had no previous police record. He used two weapons, which he was believed to have owned legally, police said. "Today is a dark day in the history of our country," Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker told reporters in Graz, a city of about 300,000 people in southeastern Austria. He called it "a national tragedy that shocks us deeply" and said there would be three days of national mourning, with the Austrian flag lowered to half-staff at official buildings. A national minute of silence was to be held Wednesday morning in memory of the victims. Special forces were among those sent to the BORG Dreierschutzengasse high school, about a kilometer (over half a mile) from Graz's historic center, after calls at 10 a.m. reporting shots at the building. More than 300 police officers were sent to the school, which was evacuated. Footage from the scene showed students filing out quickly past armed officers. Police said security was restored in 17 minutes. The assailant, who acted alone, was a 21-year-old Austrian man who lived near Graz, police said. His name wasn't released. Regional police chief Gerald Ortner said two firearms -- a long gun and a handgun -- were used in the shooting and recovered from the scene, and that the assailant was apparently legally in possession of them. The man took his own life in a bathroom. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said the gunman had been a student at the school and hadn't completed his studies. He didn't specify when the man left the school or at what age. Karner said Tuesday afternoon that six of the dead were female and three male, but didn't give further information. He said 12 people were wounded. The state hospital in Graz later said that a 10th victim, an adult woman, had died of her injuries, the Austria Press Agency reported. Austria's Red Cross said it had deployed 65 ambulances to the scene and 158 emergency staffers were helping treat the injured. In addition, 40 specially trained psychologists were counseling students and parents. The Red Cross also called on locals to come forward and donate blood. Metin Ozden was in his kebab restaurant near the school when he first heard police cars sped by, and then a police helicopter above. He told the Krone newspaper: "I knew something bad had happened. ... I've never seen so many emergency services in my entire life." He also described to the paper seeing parents walking past his restaurant and crying on the way to the school. Tuesday's violence appeared to be the deadliest attack in Austria's post-World War II history. In 2020, four people were killed in Vienna and the suspect, a sympathizer of the Islamic State group, also died in a shooting. More than 20 other people, including a police officer, were wounded. In June 2015, a man killed three people and injured more than 30 when he drove through a crowd in downtown Graz with an SUV. Austria, which has a strong tradition of hunting, has some of the more liberal gun laws in the European Union. Some weapons, such as rifles and shotguns that must be reloaded manually after each shot, can be purchased in Austria from the age of 18 without a permit. Gun dealers only need to check if there's no weapons ban on the buyer and the weapon gets registered in the central weapons register. Other weapons, such as repeating shotguns or semi-automatic firearms, are more difficult to acquire -- buyers need a gun ownership card and a firearms pass.

Austrian police search for answers after mass shooting in school
Austrian police search for answers after mass shooting in school

Japan Today

time3 hours ago

  • Japan Today

Austrian police search for answers after mass shooting in school

People light candles outside the site of a deadly shooting at a secondary school, in Graz, Austria, on Wednesday. By Francois Murphy Austrian authorities were searching on Wednesday for answers to why a 21-year-old gunman shot 10 people in a rampage at his former high school before killing himself, one of the worst outbreaks of violence in the country's modern history. Police said the man, armed with a shotgun and a pistol, acted alone. They are scouring his home and the internet for clues to why he opened fire on the school in Austria's second city of Graz on Tuesday, before shooting himself in a bathroom. Police added that a pipe bomb found at his home was not functional. Some Austrian media have said the young man, who has not been identified, apparently felt bullied, though police have yet to confirm this. Austrian authorities said the suspect never completed his studies at the school. He left a farewell note that did not reveal the motive for the attack, police said. Franz Ruf, director general of public security, said investigations into the motive were moving swiftly. "We don't want to speculate at this point," he told national broadcaster ORF on Tuesday night. Around 17 minutes elapsed between the first emergency calls received by police about shots being fired at the school and the scene being declared safe, Ruf said. Details of the attack have emerged slowly. Austrian police said victims were found both outside and inside the school, on various floors. About a dozen people were injured in the attack, some seriously. Austria declared three days of national mourning, with the shootings prompting a rare show of solidarity among often bitterly divided political parties. Parents of pupils and neighbors of the school struggled to make sense of the event. Hundreds came together in Graz's main square on Tuesday evening to remember the victims. Others left flowers and lit candles outside the school. Dozens also queued to donate blood for the survivors. © (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2025.

Russia launches one of war's largest air attacks on Kyiv
Russia launches one of war's largest air attacks on Kyiv

Japan Today

time12 hours ago

  • Japan Today

Russia launches one of war's largest air attacks on Kyiv

Firefighters work at the site of a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 10, 2025. REUTERS/Thomas Peter By Anastasiia Malenko and Pavel Polityuk Russia launched one of its largest air strikes on Kyiv in over three years of war and struck a maternity ward in the southern city of Odesa in attacks that killed at least three people, officials said on Tuesday. The overnight strikes followed Russia's biggest drone assault of the war on Ukraine on Monday and were part of intensified bombardments in what Moscow says is retaliation for attacks by Ukrainian forces on Russia. The Russian attack also damaged Saint Sophia Cathedral, a UNESCO world heritage site located in the historic centre of Kyiv, Ukrainian Culture Minister Mykola Tochytskyi said. "The enemy struck at the very heart of our identity again," Tochytskyi wrote on Facebook about the site he called "the soul of all Ukraine". Loud explosions shook Kyiv and blasts and fires lit up the sky in the early hours of Tuesday morning, leaving palls of heavy smoke over the city, Reuters witnesses said. Authorities deployed two firefighting helicopters to douse flames. One person died in the attack on Kyiv, city authorities said. At least four people were treated in hospital after seven of the capital's 10 districts were hit, city officials said. "Today was one of the largest attacks on Kyiv," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. "Russian missile and Shahed (drone) strikes drown out the efforts of the United States and others around the world to force Russia into peace." In Kyiv, Kateryna Zaitseva, 38, and her 14-year-old son looked at the rubble in their apartment, which received a direct hit by a drone. The explosion destroyed one room, damaged another and blew in the door of the bathroom in which they were hiding. "We started moving blindly to the entrance door. I heard the voice of the emergency worker ... I shouted that there were two of us, that we were unhurt and he helped us," said Zaitseva, a laboratory technician. In the southern port of Odesa, an overnight drone attack hit an emergency medical building, a maternity ward and residential buildings, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram. Two men were killed in that attack but patients and staff were safely evacuated from the maternity hospital, he said. Iryna Britkaru, 23, who gave birth to a girl on June 6, said projectiles had started hitting the building in Odesa as soon as she and other patients had been whisked to the basement by hospital staff. "The third (impact) was already very loud, and shrapnel flew... (it) rained down in the corridor," she told Reuters. Natalia Kovalenko, 34, who five days ago also gave birth to a girl, said she was hoping for an end to the war. "If we don't have hope, then no one will be giving birth," she said. A State Department spokesperson said Washington was monitoring the situation closely, adding that it was time for an end to the war. "Russia's strikes against Ukraine's cities need to stop immediately," the spokesperson said. "We condemn these strikes and extend our deepest condolences to the victims and to the families of all those affected." Both sides deny targeting civilians but thousands of civilians have been killed in Europe's worst conflict since World War Two, the vast majority of them Ukrainian. Russia's defense ministry confirmed that its forces had attacked military targets in Kyiv with high-precision weapons and drones overnight, Russia's TASS state news agency reported. Air raid alerts in Kyiv and most Ukrainian regions lasted five hours until around 5 a.m., according to information released by the military. "A difficult night for all of us," Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv's city military administration, said on Telegram. Ukraine's air force said Russia had fired 315 drones across the country, of which 277 were downed. All seven missiles launched by Russia were also brought down, it said. Moscow has intensified its attacks on Ukraine following Kyiv's strikes on strategic bombers at air bases inside Russia on June 1. Moscow also blamed Kyiv for bridge explosions on the same day that killed seven and injured scores. Over the past week, Russia has launched 1,451 drones and 78 missiles to attack Ukraine, according to Ukrainian air force data. Russia temporarily halted flights overnight at four airports serving Moscow, at St Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport and at airports in nine other cities after the defence ministry said Ukraine had launched more drones at Russia, officials said. Most flights were restored later on Tuesday. No damage was reported. Zelenskiy urged Ukraine's allies to take steps to force Russia into peace, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called for immediate new sanctions and air defence systems. Although Moscow and Kyiv have held two rounds of direct peace talks in recent weeks, the only tangible progress has been an agreement on exchanges of prisoners of war, and Russia has continued to advance along the front line in eastern Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv blame each other for the lack of progress towards ending the war, which has raged since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed frustration with both sides. © Thomson Reuters 2025.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store