HELSINKI, FINLAND - A MALE student shot dead several people at a vocational school in western Finland on Tuesday before killing himself, local authorities said.

The gunman, a student at the local school in the town of Kauhajoki, was shooting inside the building for some time before he shot himself, police said.

'He is no longer free. He has killed himself,' Kauhajoki Mayor Antti Rantakokko told Reuters.

'Several are dead,' said Mr Rantakokko, adding he did not know the exact number. 'The situation is over now.'

Rescue personnel around the school had been unable to help while the student was still firing in the building, said rescue squad coordinator Kari Saarinen, chief physician at Senajoki Hospital, about 60 kilometres from Kauhajoki.

He said hospitals in the area were on full emergency alert.

He added that he was unsure about the number of victims, but believed there were several - some wounded, some dead.

The shooting raised the spectre of the killings at Finland's Jokela high school last year, where student Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed six fellow students, the school nurse and the principal after broadcasting his intent with a video on YouTube.

Auvinen shot himself and died later of his injuries.

Mr Rantakokko said there were echoes of Jokela in the Kauhajoki incident.

'On the Internet there is some information, there are analogies to the Jokela case,' he said.

A search of YouTube yielded four videos filmed by a user who calls himself Mr Saari, who said he was 22 years old and lived in Kauhajoki. The videos, between 20 and 32 seconds long, show a man dressed in black or dark colours, firing at a shooting range.

The YouTube user's profile included the words, 'And suddenly there was war and the mothers they screamed. For revenge and reprisals for another war.'

Kauhajoki is a municipality of 14,000 people located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Southern Ostrobothnia region.