At least nine people are feared dead and several others seriously injured after a man went on a shooting rampage at a college in southern Finland this morning. Police have said the gunman, a 20-year-old student at the school in the southwestern town of Kauhajoki, then shot himself.

The gunman was still alive but wounded and in hospital, authorities said. The gunman was carrying an automatic weapon and wearing a ski mask when he entered the college, reports said. The level of gun ownership in Finland is among the highest in the world.

In November 2007, a Finnish high school student shot dead eight people before killing himself at Jokela, 40 miles north of Helsinki. The killer, 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen.

The incident led to a re-assessment of Finland's laws on gun ownership. The country was unaccustomed to deadly shooti