Columbine problem hits Europe: If only one of the victims or a witness had access to a gun, several lives might have been saved.
18 die in German school massacre
Some pupils are being treated in hospital for shock
Eighteen people died when an expelled former
pupil went on a shooting spree at his school in
the eastern German city of Erfurt.
Fourteen teachers, a
policewoman and two
female pupils were shot
dead before the
19-year-old turned his
gun on himself.
Police are still searching
the school for a possible second gunman.
It is the worst school massacre in Europe since
the 1996 shooting in Dunblane, Scotland, when
16 children, a teacher and the gunman died.
Maths exam
The BBC's Berlin correspondent, Rob Broomby,
says it is the worst incident of its kind in
Germany's post-war history.
Fifteen of those killed
died in the first few
minutes of the
shooting.
Bodies were found all
over the school in
classrooms and toilets.
Erfurt police chief
Manfred Grube
described the scene
as a "picture of
horror".
"At first we didn't
know what was going
on, then there was
firing, and we ran out,"
said a pupil
interviewed on German
television.
"We thought at first it
was a joke, and then
we heard the shots,
and we were so scared," said another.
Mr Grube said the gunman killed himself "when
he saw that there was no way out for him".
Throughout the day a
banner could be seen
hanging from a window
with the message:
"Help!"
Local radio cited a
pupil as saying that a
fellow-pupil pulled a
gun as he was about
to sit a maths exam,
but the report remains
unconfirmed.
He was later holed up
in a classroom on the second floor, as some
180 pupils remained trapped in the building.
They made frantic calls by mobile phone to
their friends outside.
Second school attack
Most of the 750 pupils were evacuated from
the building - a grammar school for children
aged between 10 and 19 - at an early stage in
the drama.
Some are being treated for shock in local
hospitals.
Correspondents say that outside the building,
a police officer with a megaphone urged
parents to register their children's names
before leaving the scene, while groups of
dazed and shocked students huddled in the
street, hugging and crying.
A local courtroom has
been set up as a
meeting point for
parents and children.
The incident comes
just two months after
a similar attack in
southern Germany,
when a disgruntled
former pupil opened
fire in his old school,
leaving dead and
wounded behind.
The 22-year-old man killed the headmaster of
a school in Freising near Munich, before
blowing himself up. |
