Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, second from right, and Orlando Police Chief John Mina arrive to a news conference after a fatal shooting at Pulse Orlando nightclub in Orlando.
President Barack Obama was being kept up to date by his homeland security and counterterrorism aide on what Florida officials are investigating as a terrorist attack.įBI official Ronald Hopper told reporters officials were “confident” there was no immediate further threat to the area, or to the United States. “There are another 53 that are hospitalised.”
“We have cleared the building, and it is with great sadness that I share we have not 20, but 50 casualties in addition to the shooter,” Mayor Buddy Dyer told a mid-morning news briefing in Orlando, more than doubling the previously given death toll. Terrified survivors - who moments before were laughing and dancing with friends - described how the gunman named by media as a US citizen of Afghan descent raked the club with bullets, prompting a police SWAT team to storm the venue.
ORLANDO: Fifty people died and another 53 were injured early Sunday when a heavily-armed gunman opened fire and seized hostages at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, police said, in the worst mass shooting in US history.
