German media report multiple deaths in Munich shopping centre shooting

Germany's Muencher Abendzeitung has reported that up to 15 people have been killed in a shooting in a shopping mall in the southern city of Munich.

TV images showed dozens of emergency vehicles outside the mall on Friday.

Police have closed off a wide area around the large shopping center after shots were fired, Reuters news agency quoted a spokeswoman for police as saying.

Police did not provide details on injuries or who was responsible for the shooting immediately.

An official at the Munich Olympia Shopping Centre declined comment, saying only, "We are experiencing a problem."

The shopping center is next to the Munich Olympic stadium, where the Palestinian militant group Black September took 11 Israeli athletes hostage and eventually killed them during the 1972 Olympic Games.
 
Friday's attack took place a week after a 17-year-old asylum-seeker wounded passengers on a German train in an axe rampage claimed by Islamic State. Bavarian police shot dead the teenager after he wounded four people from Hong Kong on the train and injured a local resident while fleeing.
 
German Justice Minister Heiko Maas told Bild newspaper's Friday edition that there was "no reason to panic but it's clear that Germany remains a possible target".
 
The incidents in Germany follow an attack in Nice, France, on Bastille Day in which a Tunisian drove a truck into crowds, killing 84. Islamic State also claimed responsibility for that attack.

Employees still hiding out inside 

Staff in the German shopping mall are still hiding, an employee told Reuters by telephone.
 
NTV television reported that German police special forces had arrived at the scene.
 
"Many shots were fired, I can't say how many but it's been a lot," the employee, who declined to be identified, said from the mall in Munich.
 
"All the people from outside came streaming into the store and I only saw one person on the ground who was so severely injured that he definitely didn't survive,"
 
"We have no further information, we're just staying in the back in the storage rooms. No police have approached us yet."
 
Munich transport authorities said they had halted several bus, train and tram lines.