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Lone gunman kills eight in Czech town restaurant, mayor says

The town of Uhersky Brod in the eastern part of the Czech Republic, site of Tuesday's shooting, is southeast of the capital Prague.

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Radovan Stoklasa/REUTERS
Police officers patrol near a restaurant where a gunman opened fire in Uhersky Brod, Czech Republic, February 24, 2015.
  • By Petra Vodstrcilova Reuters

| Prague, Czech Republic

A man shot dead eight people in a restaurant in an eastern Czech town on Tuesday and then killed himself, the town's mayor said.

"I have been given information that it was a 60-year-old local man, probably mentally unstable," the mayor, Patrik Kuncar, told Czech television.

"We can see that, here, probably, a lone shooter struck with no warning."

The broadcaster said the attacker fired about 25 rounds at lunchtime in the Druzba, or "friendship," restaurant in a residential district of the town of Uhersky Brod, 180 miles southeast of Prague.

An woman injured in the incident was admitted to a hospital in the nearby town of Uherske Hradiste, a hospital spokeswoman said.

An eyewitness told the broadcaster he had seen around 10 police cars arrive and police putting on bulletproof vests.

Such shooting incidents are very rare in the Czech Republic, a central European country of 10.5 million. Uhersky Brod is a town of 17,000 in the Moravia region, near the border with Slovakia.

Interior Minister Milan Chovanec flew to the scene of the attack along with police commander Tomas Tuhy.

Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said in a statement: "I am shocked by the tragic attack that happened today in Uhersky Brod. I would like to express my deepest sorrow and condolences to the families and relatives of the victims."

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