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ORLANDO. — A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun took hostages and opened fire inside a crowded Florida gay nightclub, killing approximately 20 people and wounding 42 others before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said yesterday.

Police Chief John Mina also said the shooter had some sort of “suspicious device”. He said the suspect exchanged gunfire with an officer working at the club around 2am, then went back inside and took hostages. Mina said police have not determined an exact number of casualties, but that “approximately 20” people were dead inside the club. Around 5am (local time), authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the hostages, and the suspect then died in a gunfight with those officers.

FBI spokesman Danny Banks said during a news conference that the mass shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism. He said authorities are looking into whether this was an act of domestic or international terror, and if the shooter was a lone wolf. The incident began at about 2am (6am GMT) at the Pulse nightclub in the city’s downtown area. “Shooting at Pulse Nightclub on S Orange. Multiple injuries. Stay away from area,” Orlando police wrote on Twitter. Speaking to Sky News, clubber Ricardo Negron, who was inside when the shooting began, described how the gunman raked the club with bullets.

“At around 2am someone started shooting. People just dropped on the floor. I guess the shooter was shooting at the ceiling because you could see all the glass from the lamps falling,” he told the network. He described hearing “non-stop firing” which probably lasted less than a minute but felt like a lot longer.

“There was a brief pause in the shooting and some of us just got up and ran out the back. People have definitely been injured — or worse.” It was not immediately clear how many people were inside the club when the shooting began. Another clubber called Christopher Hanson told CNN he heard “loud banging noises, like gunshots going off”.

He said at first he thought it may have been the music “until you heard too many shots. It was like, bang, bang, bang, bang,” he told CNN. — Agencies.