A glance at school or nursery shootings in recent years

In the U.S. southern state of Alabama on Tuesday, a gunman killed at least ten people before killing himself, local authorities and state police said.

In January this year, a 20-year-old man armed with a knife killed two infants, aged six and nine months, and a 54-year-old nurse in a childcare centre outside Brussels.

Sept. 23, 2008: Matti Saari, 22, killed nine fellow students and a teacher before shooting himself at a vocational school in Kauhajoki, Finland.

Feb. 14, 2008: Former student Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opens fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, fatally shooting five students and wounding 18 others before committing suicide.

Nov. 7, 2007: Pekka-Eric Auvinen, 18, shoots and kills eight people and himself at a high school in Tuusula, Finland.

April 16, 2007: Cho Seung-Hui, 23, fatally shoots 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, then kills himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Nov. 20, 2006: Sebastian Bosse, 18, goes on a rampage at his former high school in Emsdetten, Germany, near the Dutch border, shooting and injuring four students and the school janitor. Police commandos later found Bosse dead.

April 26, 2002: Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, previously expelled from a school in Erfurt, Germany, kills 13 teachers, two former classmates and a policeman, before committing suicide.

In February 2002, a 22-year-old gunman killed the headmaster and seriously injured another person in a vocational training establishment he attended at Freising, near Munich.

April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold open fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before committing suicide in the schools library.

March 13, 1996: Thomas Hamilton, 43, killed 16 kindergarten children and their teacher in Dunblane, Scotland, and then killed himself.