Witnesses have described scenes of panic inside and outside Charles University as gunshots rang out in the heart of historical Prague on Thursday, sparking chaos and fear in an area bustling with locals and tourists. The shooting began shortly after Jakob Weizman, a journalist and masters student at the university, arrived to sit an Albanian language exam. It was just him and the professor in the small room, he said. “And during the exam I heard gunshots and I heard screaming.” Both of them froze, unsure what to do. “Eventually police started showing up and there were more gunshots and screaming.” He locked the classroom door and put up a makeshift barricade, frantically shoving tables, chairs and anything else he could find against the door. “I think the shooter went from inside of the faculty to the outside to the balcony where he was shooting on people from outside,” the 25-year-old told the Guardian. “There were people trying to escape over the ledge.” Several images showed what appeared to be students crouching on a ledge near the roof, seemingly attempting to hide from the gunman. Police later said that at least 14 people were killed and 24 injured. Soon after Wiezman set up the barricade, he said he heard someone trying to open the door of the room he was in. “He was going through each classroom to see if people were there to shoot them,” he said. “We locked our door just five minutes before he tried to open our door.” He and his professor remained in the room for about an hour, texting their loved ones and asking people to let police know that they were trapped in room 309A. “I was just trying to tell people what was happening, calling my mom, calling my girlfriend,” he said. “If it’s the end, trying to say what you can before – I don’t know. You’re never prepared for the situation.” After he heard a lot of shooting and screaming initially, things appeared to calm down for a bit. “And then there was a lot more shooting and screaming 30 minutes later.” Eventually the pair were evacuated by police. “As we were walking out, there was just blood all over the faculty.” Outside the university, police vehicles and ambulances sped across the 14th-century Charles Bridge. In the city centre, where hours earlier throngs of people had been visiting the busy Christmas markets, officers emptied squares. “We heard loud gun shots,” Joe Hyland, 18, from Truro, Cornwall, told the BBC. “But we didn’t think much of it until we heard people screaming, people running away, sirens. Then we thought this is serious.” One of his friends was on crutches so they were unable to run. Instead the group of friends, who were in Prague for a holiday, hobbled away as fast as they could. Another witness, Ivo Havranek, 43, initially dismissed the loud bangs he heard, thinking it was rowdy tourists or a coming from a nearby movie set. “Then suddenly there were students and teachers running out of the building,” he told Reuters. “I went through the crowd not realising what is actually going on. I wasn’t ready to admit that something like that could happen in Prague.” Only when he saw police officers carrying automatic rifles did he understand that it was serious. “They shouted at me to run.” Newlyweds Tom Leese, 34, and Rachael, 31, were on their honeymoon and having a drink in the Slivovitz Museum, nearby to where the shooting occurred. A policeman came in and started shouting loudly, Leese told PA Media. When he asked for a translation, police told him there was an active shooter and to stay inside and stay down. “The staff were very calm, turned all the lights off very quickly and urged us to stay calm.” The couple, from Merstham in Surrey, were kept in the museum for over an hour as sirens blared outside. Petr Nedoma, director of the Rudolfinum Gallery at a concert hall across Palach Square, told Czech TV that he had seen the shooter. “I saw a young person on the gallery who had some weapon in his hand, like an automatic weapon, and shooting toward the Manes Bridge. Repeatedly, with some interruptions, then I saw as he shot, put his hands up and threw the weapon down on the street, it lay there on the pedestrian crossing,” he said. Czech police later described the gunman as a 24-year-old Charles University student who had been influenced by similar shootings abroad. His body was found by police on Thursday. After speaking to police, Weizman said his next task was to recover the belongings he had left in the exam room when he was hurriedly evacuated. He was bracing himself. “I don’t think I could ever set foot in the faculty again,” he said. “It never happened in 15 years of living in the US. But it happens for the first time in Czechia.”