An 18-year-old student killed a school supervisor and injured four others in a knife attack at a high school in northern Chile on Friday morning.
The horror unfolded just after 10:30am local time at the Instituto Obispo Silva Lezaeta in Calama, a mining city about 1,500 kilometres north of Santiago.
According to authorities, the teenager first argued with another pupil before two inspectors stepped in to calm things down.
Moments later, he pulled out a knife and launched a frenzied assault, stabbing the two inspectors and three students.
One of the inspectors, a 59-year-old woman identified only as M.V.R.V., suffered fatal wounds and died at the scene.
The other four victims – one additional inspector and three students – were rushed to hospital but are not in life-threatening condition.
Police moved quickly. Officers from Carabineros arrived within minutes, subdued the attacker and took him into custody.
They later discovered he had also brought accelerants, including petrol, raising fears the attack may have been planned in advance.
He was transferred to a local hospital for checks before being held at the Primera Comisaría de Calama.
The school immediately suspended classes and evacuated the entire site.
Students and staff poured out onto the streets as emergency services cordoned off the area.
Antofagasta regional governor Ricardo Díaz described the incident as “extremely serious” and said it had shaken the whole community.
“This is an event that has a profound impact and affects the soul of the people of Calama,” he told reporters.
“Nothing of this magnitude had ever occurred here before.”
The government has already announced it will file a formal homicide complaint against the teenager, who was in his final year of secondary school.
Investigators have not yet released any details about a possible motive.
Calama lies in Chile’s northern desert region, far from the capital but known for its copper mines and tight-knit communities.
While school violence occasionally makes headlines elsewhere in Latin America, such a deadly incident inside a Chilean classroom remains exceptionally rare.
In the hours after the attack, local media showed images of shocked parents waiting anxiously outside the gates and police officers standing guard around the now-empty school building.
As night fell over Calama, the city’s usual calm had given way to grief and questions about how such violence could erupt in a place long considered safe.
