'It's a real shock. I can't believe that this has happened here, it's such a small town,' Ms Mari Laehdesmaeki, a 16-year-old with piercing blue eyes, bundled up in black parka to fend off the biting autumn cold, tells AFP.
The massacre was even more shocking given that 'there was another school shooting in Finland last year,' she adds.
In November 2007, another student killed eight people at Jokela High School north of Helsinki.
'The problem is that it's too easy to get a gun,' Laehdesmaeki says, before walking back to join a group of about 100 people huddling outside the school despite the chill.
Police tape prevents onlookers from getting close to the vocational school, while Finnish army troops guard the scene in order to allow police to continue their investigation undisturbed inside the premises.
The crowd, made up of men and women, some young, some old, light candles in the dark before gently putting them on the ground.
A small sign with the words 'rakkaudella muistonen' (memories of love) has already been placed among the flickering flames.
A young woman hugs a little girl tightly in her arms. The faces of the people gathered are taut and solemn, and few want to speak to the hordes of reporters at the scene.
'I was in the class next door when it happened. When I heard the shots I didn't realise it was a shooting, it was only when a student next door came into our classroom in a total panic that I understood,' says Sanna Orpana, 17.
The blonde girl with big black glasses says she and her classmates then dived under their desks.
'I was terrified. Then I managed to get out,' she says.
Orpana says the gunman, identified as 22-year-old student Matti Juhani Saari, came across as a normal person.
'He was just a student at the school, I didn't really know him.'
Susanna Kaponen, 18, and Marika Saakkola, 16, were not students at the school but they were among those standing vigil outside 'to bring support to the victims' and express their sadness at the tragedy.
'I feel very sad because too many people died today,' Kaponen says.
'It's a small town, there are only 15,000 residents. Everything is fine here, I don't really understand how this could happen.'
Her friend says she's now 'very, very afraid of going to school.'
'It's terrifying to know that another student can come to school with a weapon and kill several people in the space of just a few minutes,' Saakkola adds.
The two girls say they have several friends who study at the school.
'They're in a state of shock, they don't want to talk,' says Kaponen.
'We all just want to try to get some sleep tonight and go back to a normal life.'
Saari turned his gun on himself after killing 10 people in the school and injuring one, police said. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital several hours later. -- AFP