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Mexico shooting: Five dead in Playa del Carmen music festival nightclub attack, officials say.

At least five people, including four foreigners, have been killed and 15 injured when a gunman opened fire outside the Blue Parrot nightclub in the Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen during the BPM electronic music festival, officials say.

Quintana Roo state Attorney-General Miguel Angel Pech told a press conference that two Canadians, an Italian and a Colombian were killed.

A woman also died in the stampede to exit the club.

Mr Pech said a lone gunman apparently tried to enter the nightclub about 3:00am (local time), but was denied access because he had a weapon.

The gunman began to exchange fire with another person inside, he said, and festival security personnel tried to stop the shooting and came under fire.

Perth man Tim Mullen told ABC News he was inside the Blue Parrot nightclub when the shooting happened.

“About four or five hours into the party we heard a couple of ‘pops’ going off, and we at first thought it was fire crackers and we looked across the dance floor to establish whether or not anything was going off that we needed to see and when we didn’t see any fireworks we started thinking the worst,” he said.

“When we heard the pops were getting closer to us, we did our best to hit the deck as fast as we could, pull everybody down that was around us.

“[There was] lots of screaming and lots of people were running around but we stayed put and as soon as we saw 30 or 40 people get out safely through the main exit, we decided to do a runner.”

Mr Pech said 10 of the injured people were still in hospital, with the State Government adding one person was in a critical condition.

He said it was not a terrorist attack, and that three people had been arrested nearby, but it was unclear if they had been involved in the shooting.

Mr Pech said two of the dead were BPM security workers but BPM organisers said three members of its security team were killed in the attack.

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“We are overcome with grief over this senseless act of violence and we are cooperating fully with local law enforcement and government officials as they continue their investigation,” BPM said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.

Mr Mullen said there were more than 2,000 people in the club at the time and many of them were Australians.

“We had to go over a few of the victims just to get through the melee, there were people all exiting at once,” he said.

“One of the guys that was at the party with us administered first aid.

“It’s been such an amazingly wonderful festival … everybody is sad about the fact that the week has been blackened by such a violent act.”

BPM one of the world’s top electronic music events

Video footage showed people running from the Blue Parrot club and ducking for cover.

“This is a very, very sad situation. Tryna (sic) get my head around it still. Thoughts and condolences to all affected,” Scottish DJ Jackmaster, who was performing at BPM, said on Twitter.

The festival is popular with foreign tourists, especially from the United States and the United Kingdom.

It was entering its 10th year and has grown to be one of the most important electronic music events in the world, with top DJs flying in every January to play the clubs of Playa del Carmen along Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

Shootings in Mexican clubs are not unusual and are often linked to gang violence, but the venues targeted are normally those frequented by gang members rather than tourists.

Quintana Roo and the surrounding Yucatan peninsula have traditionally been less violent than other parts of Mexico, with relatively low murder rates.

ABC/Wires

This post originally appeared on ABC News.


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