Nine people were killed on Tuesday in a vocational college for adults in Kauhajoki, Finland when a masked gunman believed to be one of the school’s students opened fire, and subsequently shot himself.

The 22-year old attacker, who appears to have acted alone, has survived the self-inflicted gunshot wound and has been taken to a hospital with serious head injury, according to Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.

According to police, the shots started at 11 am EET, when the man dressed in black walked into the school carrying a large bag, then proceeded to open fire. He left nine people dead before shooting himself in the head, his suicide unsuccessful. 150 students, faculty and staff were evacuated. Firefighters also extinguished a fire started in a different part of the building. Several people were left wounded and are being treated in two hospitals in the Ostrobothnia district.

Police have cordoned off the targeted college which is part of the Seinajoki Vocational Training Center in Kauhajoki, itself 205 miles from Helsinki.

This is the second school shooting in the space of one year in Finland, with eight people (six students and two staff members) killed last November in the Jokela High School in the vicinity of Helsinki.

Finland has the highest number of guns registered to civilians in Europe – 1.8 million weapons to a population of 5.3 million. This is the third highest rate of guns per capita after the U.S. and Yemen. Any Finnish adult can own a firearm provided that this is properly registered with a shooting club.