A 19-year-old student in Russia’s Far East opened fire in his college Thursday morning, killing one classmate and injuring three other people before shooting himself, investigators said.

The male student in a construction college in the town of Blagoveshchensk “murdered his classmate and wounded three using a rifle registered to him,” the Investigative Committee of far-eastern Amur region said.

“During (police) attempts to apprehend him, he shot himself dead,” investigators said.

The victim was also 19 while the injured students ranged from 17 to 20 years old.

The small college in the town centre was surrounded with police cars and some of the streets were closed off Thursday, local website Amur.Info said, adding that the shooter likely used a shotgun in the middle of a lecture attended by 20 people.

Russia has relatively few school shootings due to normally tight security in education facilities and the difficulty of buying firearms legally but it is possible to register hunting rifles.

Last October a teenage gunman killed 20 people and injured more than 40 at his college in Moscow-annexed Crimea, apparently inspired by the 1999 Columbine high school shooting in the United States. (AFP)