A shooting rampage inside a restaurant in Czech Republic killed eight people on Tuesday. The gunman later shot himself dead. 

Diners were having lunch at Druzba restaurant in the town of Uhersky Brod when the gunman entered and fired about 25 shots, in one of the country's deadliest mass murders in four decades.

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The shooter remains unidentified, but was described as a local man in his 60's. He was carrying two registered guns. 

Reports said the shooter called a Czech TV station's crime line to inform them of his planned attack.  Authorities say this could suggest the gunman was mentally unstable.

"We have never seen anything like this before," said Tomas Tuhy, head of the Czech Republic's national police who branded the attack as a tragedy.

Seven of those killed were men, while an injured woman, a waitress at the restaurant, is battling for her life at the nearby Uherske Hradiste hospital.

Pavel Lebduska, head of the regional broadcasting at the Prima Channel who received the gunman's call at about 12:56 p.m. Czech time, said the caller asked him to send a TV crew to Uhersky Brod because something was about to happen.

When Lebduska asked for more details, the caller said in a seemingly harassed tone, that he was being bullied by many people and that no one was helping him. Lebduska said the caller, without revealing his exact location, warned that he was going to harm people.

Lebduska tried to keep the man on the line as he alerted the police. But the man hung up and within minutes, the shooting started.

The latest attack followed mass shooting across Europe, including the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris and the Copenhagen attack --- later branded as terrorist acts. But Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said this was not a terrorist attack.

Chovanec tweeted: "According to the available information, this was not a terrorist attack, but one carried out by an unbalanced individual."

Uhersky Brod is a town located near the border with Slovakia and has a population of 17,000.

Tagsczech shooting, shooting rampage, Czech Republic, Druzba