A gunman has shot and killed a student at an Oregon high school, in the latest in a spate of US shootings.

The gunman also died in the incident at Reynolds High School in Troutdale in the northwestern US state, the local police chief said.

“A gunman entered the high school this morning, shot one student. Unfortunately, that student has died,” police chief Scott Anderson said on Tuesday in the city just east of Portland.

“The gunman was located and the gunman is also deceased … The situation is contained,” he added.

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Large numbers of armed police scambled to lock down the school after reports of shots fired around 8am local time.

But about an hour later the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said the situation was under control.

“Multiple agencies responded and tactical teams are currently evacuating students and staff,” it said.

There were no immediate reports of other casualties, after children could be seen in live TV images filing out with their hands on their heads.

Some 60 law enforcement officers and 19 medical personnel descended on the school, according to local KOIN television.

The shooting is the latest in a spate of such incidents over the past few weeks in the former Wild West region of the US.

On May 23, a student with mental problems, the son of a Hollywood director, went on a gun rampage at a college campus in Santa Barbara, north of Los Angeles, killing six people and then himself.

On June 5, a gunman killed one person and injured two others on on a college campus in the northwestern US city of Seattle, in what the local mayor denounced as America’s “epidemic of gun violence”.

On Sunday, a couple with possible links to anti-government militia shot dead two police officers execution-style in a Las Vegas pizza restaurant, before killing another civilian nearby and then themselves.