A teenager at a school in Finland has shot dead seven classmates and the headmistress.

Police identified 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen as the killer who was pronounced dead later on Wednesday after turning the gun on himself.

"There was no hope," said Dr Eero Hirvensalo, chief of the Toolo hospital in central Helsinki. "His condition was critical from the beginning."

A police spokesman said the gunman shot himself in the head.

Auvinen had signaled his intentions in a video posted on the internet.

Witnesses described chaos and panic as Auvinen shot dead his headmistress, five boys, two girls, and wounded a dozen others as they tried to flee the carnage.

Internet warning

Miro Lukinmaa, a student, told the Iltalehti newspaper: "Suddenly people began running and shots were heard and began raining down.

"I saw injured people lying in the corridor. We started to run and followed [the crowd] in panic. Everyone was trying to squeeze through a narrow door."

The shooting came after a video entitled "Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007" was posted on the video-sharing website YouTube.

The video shows a still photo of a low building that appears to be the Jokela High School.

The photo then breaks apart to reveal a red-tinted picture of a man pointing a handgun at the camera.

"He [Auvinen] was moving systematically through the school hallways, knocking on the doors and shooting through the doors," said Kim Kiuru, who was teaching a grade 8 class when the shooting began.

"It felt unreal; a pupil I have taught myself was running towards me, screaming, a pistol in his hand."

Hannu Joensivusaid, the mayor of Tuusula, said: "This is a peaceful place, nothing like this has happened and nothing like this is to be expected either."

Despite having the world's third-largest per capita handgun ownership, violent incidents are rare at Finnish schools.

Tuusula is a town of 35,000, around 60km from the capital, Helsinki.

PHOTO CAPTION 

A gunman opened fire at a school in southern Finland on Wednesday, hours after a video was posted on YouTube predicting a school massacre. [Reuters]

Al-Jazeera