Flags flew at half-mast across Finland today in mourning for eight people killed by an 18-year-old gunman at a school hours after he posted a video on YouTube predicting a massacre there.
Picture taken from the web site of teenage gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, who shoot dead least seven students and the principal at a Finnish school yesterday
Six pupils of Jokela High School, along with the school's principal and its nurse, were killed when student Pekka-Eric Auvinen opened fire with a .22 calibre handgun in the middle of the school day. He then shot himself in the head.
The gunman, who had a keen interest in war history and extremist movements, died late last night in hospital.
Police said today that one of the dead was the nurse at the school in Tuusula municipality of 35,000, some 60 km (40 miles) from Helsinki. Initially, they had believed seven students and one staff member had been killed.
Many children hid in classrooms for hours after the shooting, fearing the gunman was still a threat.
Police said today that Auvinen, who took more than 400 rounds of ammunition into the school, fired at least 69 times and that all of his victims were hit repeatedly. Some bodies were riddled with nearly 20 bullets apiece.
They said he tried to set fire to the school, but failed.
"Based on all we know he decided to commit a random, incomprehensible act and to kill himself afterwards," Inspector Rabbe von Hertzen of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation told a news conference.
Such a tragedy in the normally peaceful Nordic nation should make Finland reconsider its campaign against European Union plans to tighten gun ownership laws for youngsters, a senior cabinet member said.
"In my opinion we should reconsider this very seriously," Trade Minister Mauri Pekkarinen said. "I believe we have to critically think over Finland's position one more time. I am ready to take this up in the government."
Although the country has the world's third-highest per capita gun ownership, deadly shootings are rare.
Auvinen, who only last month obtained the permit for the gun he used in the shooting, walked "systematically" through the school's corridors, firing into classroom after classroom, according to a teacher at the school.