Ten dead after woman opens fire at high school in Canada

The suspected shooter has been found dead from a self-inflicted injury

Representational photo: The skyline of the Metrotown district rises above a thick layer of fog at dawn as a ridge of high pressure creates a coastal temperature inversion in the Greater Vancouver city of Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada Jan 20, 2026. REUTERS

Ten people are dead including the shooter after a woman opened fire at a high school in western Canada on Tuesday before turning the gun on herself, police said.

The outburst, one of the country's deadliest mass casualty events in recent history, brought to Canada the type of mass shooting more common in the neighboring United States.

Six people were found dead inside a high school in the town of Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia, two more people were found dead at a residence believed to be connected to the incident, and another person died on the way to hospital, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

At least two other people were hospitalised with serious or life-threatening injuries, and as many as 25 people were being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

A suspected shooter was also found dead from what appears to be a self‑inflicted injury, police said, adding they did not believe there were any more suspects or ongoing threat to the public.

Police described the shooter as a woman - an unusual development as mass shootings in North America are almost always carried out by men.

A police active shooter alert said the suspect was described "as female in a dress with brown hair." Police Superintendent Ken Floyd later confirmed at a press conference that the suspect described in the alert was the same person found dead in the school. Police did not say how many of the victims may have been minors.

ONE OF CANADA'S DEADLIEST MASS-CASUALTY INCIDENTS

Tumbler Ridge is a remote municipality with a population of around 2,400 people in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in northern British Columbia, nearly 1,155km (717 miles) northeast of Vancouver. Images of the town show a snow-covered landscaped filled with pine trees.

"Multiple injuries and multiple deceased were inside the school as officers progressed through the scene," Floyd told reporters.

"We're still triaging other victims, and I don't have updates on whether that number could rise. The scene was very dramatic, and there are multiple victims that are still being cared for," Floyd said.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement on X: "I am devastated by today’s horrific shootings in Tumbler Ridge, BC My prayers and deepest condolences are with the families and friends who have lost loved ones to these horrific acts of violence."

In April 2020, a 51-year-old man disguised in a police uniform and driving a fake police car shot and killed 22 people in a 13-hour rampage in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia, before police killed him at a gas station about 90 km (60 miles) from the site of his first killings.

In Canada's worst school shooting, in December 1989, a gunman killed 14 female students and wounded 13 at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, before committing suicide.