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At least 10 people have been killed, and a dozen more injured, after a lone gunman opened fire at a school in the Austrian city of Graz, officials have said.

At a news conference on Tuesday afternoon, interior minister Gerhard Karner confirmed nine people were killed - six girls and three boys - and 12 more were injured.

The suspected gunman, a male who acted alone, also died, he said.

Styrian State police director Gerald Ortner said they think the attacker, who was 21 and lived in Graz, killed himself in the toilet of the BORG Dreierschützengasse high school.

He didn't name the suspected gunman, but said he used two weapons in the shooting spree, both of which were legally owned.

Mr Karner said he was a former student at the school who dropped out before finishing.

Officials did not disclose any of the victims' ages, but BORG Dreierschützengasse is a federal upper secondary school, of the type which normally cater for students aged between 14 and 18, EuroEducation.net said on its website.

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Special forces were among large numbers of police and security services deployed to the school at 10am local time after reports of shots being heard.

At 11.30am, police said on X that the school had been evacuated and everyone had been taken to a safe meeting point.

The situation was "secured", they said, and there was no longer believed to be any danger.

Police said several emergency services, a police helicopter and Cobra, a police tactical unit, have been deployed and they told parents to go to the ASKO Stadium, the home ground of local football club ESK Graz, to meet their children.

Gunfire and screaming could be heard on footage posted on X purporting to be from the scene, as well as footage of an injured person being carried to a helicopter by paramedics while pictures showed armed officers at the scene.

An unnamed mother whose child survived the shooting relived the distressing moment her son called her "to say he was in school and that he was being shot and that he thought he was going to die".

She said she has "only found out now, two hours later, that he's still alive".

Speaking to reporters, Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker called it a "dark day in the history of our country" and "a national tragedy that has hit us deeply".

He said there were "no words to express the pain, the mourning, that all Austria is feeling right now".

His sympathies, he said, are with the wounded, relatives, friends and staff who had to "live through this terrible, horrible event".

There will be three days of national mourning, he said.

Earlier, Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen said in a statement the country "is in mourning" as "this horror cannot be put into words".

He said the tragedy "strikes at the heart of our country" as the victims were "young people who had their whole lives ahead of them".

He confirmed one of them was "a teacher who accompanied them on their journey".

The Austrian Red Cross told Sky News it had initiated its so-called "MANV system", a protocol for dealing with a mass casualty incident.

All hospitals in the Styria state were alerted and had to report their available capacity.

Doctors from the state hospital (LKH) and accident hospital (UKH) were working on-site and two care centres have been set up near the school to support those affected.

The service said 158 paramedics were on site, along with 31 crisis intervention staff, a number that is expected to rise, given the large number of people affected.

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A total of 65 emergency vehicles from eight districts in Styria are in operation, it said.

The school will remain closed for the time being, education minister Christoph Wiederkeh said.

Graz is Austria's second-largest city, and has a population of around 300,000.