MUNICH // Three people were killed and more feared dead and injured after what police described as "a shooting rampage" in a busy shopping centre in Munich.
Multiple gunshots were heard in the Olympia Einkaufszentrum (Olympic Shopping Centre) shortly before 6pm on Friday. Police said there was possibly more than one gunman at large while some witnesses said they saw at least three armed men. One was seen running out of the shopping centre towards the metro station.
"We believe we are dealing with a shooting rampage," said a spokeswoman for the Munich police. " We expect multiple dead. We believe there was more than one perpetrator."
Within an hour of the first shots being reported, the interior ministry in Bavaria, the German state of which Munich is the capital, confirmed that three people were dead.
Police and city officials moved swifly to evacuate the shopping centre but many people stayed hiding inside. The city's public transport system was also shut down as police urged people to avoid public spaces and to go home and stay there. The German national railway, Deutsche Bundesbahn also evacuated and closed Munich's main railway.
Armed police and specialist units quickly swarmed the area with marksmen postioned on roofs and helicopters hovering overhead. Taxi drivers were advised not to pick up any fares.
"We do not know where this person who is doing the shooting is. They [the police] are trying to close everything down," Bavarian Radio reported.
It was the second attack in Bavaria, Germany's most southerly state, in less than a week. Last Monday, a 17-year-old Afghan youth attacked passengers on a regional train near Wuerzburg with an axe and knife, badly wounding four people. One of them remains in a life-threatening condition in hospital. The youth attacked another woman as he fled the train and was then himself killed by police marksmen. ISIL admitted responsibilty for that attack.
Munich police spokesman Thomas Baumann said the shooting attack in the Olympic shopping mall began shortly before 6pm at a McDonald's restaurant.
A video purporting to show one of the gunmen running away was released on social media but police appealed to the public not to post videos or photographs online of the police operation.
Munich residents used Twitter to offer safe places to stay for anyone left standed in the city because of the shootings.
The shopping centre is close to Munich's Olympic stadium where the Palestinian militant group Black September took 11 Israeli athletes hostage and eventually executed them during the 1972 Games
A survey released on Friday showed that more than three-quarters of Germans believe that their country will be targeted by terrorists in the near future. Seventy-seven per cent of those polled for the broadcast network ZDF said they expected an attack to happen soon. Only 20 per cent did not believe a terrorist attck on Germany was imminent,. More than half - 59 per cent - believed the authorities were already doing enough to protect the public.
The poll was taken three days after the train attack.
* Agencies
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