All around Finland the flags on public buildings flew at half-staff today in commemoration of those who died in what was the country’s first ever school shooting.

Thursday was officially declared as a day of mourning by the Finnish government after on Wednesday a 18-year-old high school student used his gun to take his revenge. He had obtained the license for the gun just three weeks ago.

The high school which just entered in the country’s history is the Jokela High School and it had enrolled for this year more than 400 students aged between 12 and 18. The high school is located in the small town of Tuusula, some 30 miles north of the capital, Helsinki.

The 18-year-old killed eight people: six pupils, the principal and nurse. There were also twelve pupils wounded and many of them escaped the massacre by jumping through the school’s windows. The teen gunman died 10 hours later at a Helsinki hospital after he turned the gun on himself. The wound he inflicted in his head proved to be deadly.

According to his high school teachers and colleagues, the killer could have been described as an intelligent loner with an interest in history. His named was not made public yet.

The shooting began at noon Wednesday in the middle of a class and then, according to a local teacher, the teen gunman started running from classroom to classroom, knocking on and shooting through the doors.

A crisis centre was opened in a nearby church by the Tuusula authorities. The school was closed and it will remain that way until Monday. Candles were lit next to police tape used to cordon off the area.

A few hours before the shooting took place, a video was posted on YouTube to announce the upcoming tragedy. The video is set to hard-driving music and depicts a photo of a school that appears to be Jokela High School, then the still photo fragments to reveal a picture of a man pointing a gun at the camera.

The YouTube video was entitled "Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007" and was posted by Sturmgeist89. "Sturmgeist" means the spirit of the storm in German and probably depicts how the troubled boy must have felt.