Police in the Austrian city of Graz deployed in force to a school on Tuesday after a shooting attack.The interior ministry said there were several fatalities, but did not specify how many. A local newspaper said eight people were killed in the attack.

Several people were killed at a school in the Austrian city of Graz on Tuesday, authorities said. Police said they deployed to the school after shots were heard there.

The interior ministry said there were several fatalities but did not specify how many.

However the local Kronen Zeitung newspaper saideight people have been confirmed dead in the school shooting.

The fatalities includedthe suspected attacker, Austrian broadcaster ORF quoted the interior ministry as saying.

Several serious injuries included students and teachers, police spokesman Fritz Grundnig told local media.

Special forces were among those sent to the BORG Dreierschtzengasse High School after a call at 10am local time. Police said on social network X about an hour later that the deployment was still ongoing and that it involved a helicopter.

"Currently, a police operation is under way ... The reason for the deployment was that gunshots were heard in the building," the police said on X, confirming the attack in Graz.

Graz,Austria's second-biggest city, is located in the southeast of the country and has about 300,000 inhabitants.

Attacks in public are rare in the Alpine nation of almost 9.2 million people.

In February, a stabbing left a teenager dead and five other people injured in southern Austria, with a 23-year-old Syrian asylum seeker held.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)

Originally published on France24