A gunman killed 10 people and wounded dozens more at a Prague university on Thursday in the Czech Republic's worst shooting in decades, before authorities said the attacker was "eliminated". 

The violence in the city's historic centre sparked frantic evacuations, a massive response by heavily armed police and warnings for people to stay indoors.

The shooting erupted at the Charles University's Faculty of Arts, which sits near major tourist sites like the 14th-century Charles Bridge.

"At the moment I can say there are 11 dead people on the scene including the gunman," emergency services spokeswoman Jana Postova told public Czech TV. 

"The building is currently being evacuated and there are several dead and dozens of wounded people on the scene," police said on X, formerly Twitter.

Emergency services preliminarily reported nine serious injuries, at least five mid-serious and up to 10 light injuries.

Thursday's shooting was the worst since the Czech Republic emerged as an independent state in 1993.

Czech President Petr Pavel said he was "shocked" by the violence and expressed "deep regret and sincere condolences to the families and relatives of the victims".

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she was "shocked by the senseless violence of the shooting that claimed several lives today."

Prague's emergency service said on X that "a large number of ambulance units" were deployed at the faculty, adding the injuries ranged from light to very serious.

The private Nova TV reported a blast and a gunman on the roof of the building in Prague's historic centre.

Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said "no other gunman has been confirmed" and called on people to follow police instructions. 

Police closed the area and asked people living nearby to stay at home.

Though mass gun violence is unusual in the Czech Republic, the nation has been rocked by some instances in recent years.

A 63-year-old man shot seven men and a woman dead in 2015 before killing himself in a restaurant in the southeastern town of Uhersky Brod. 

A man killed six people in the waiting room of a hospital in the eastern city of Ostrava in 2019, with another woman dying days later. The man shot himself dead about three hours after the attack.