The gunman has been identified locally as Anders Breivik, 32, who is said to have right-wing and anti-Muslim views. The blond, blue-eyed Norwegian's Oslo flat was searched by detectives last night.
Norway's Prime Minister said 'a youth paradise turned into hell' when a gunman dressed as a police officer killed at least 84 people at a summer camp on an island outside Oslo after blowing up a further seven in the capital.
Investigators are still searching the surrounding waters, where people fled the attack.
It took investigators several hours to realise the full horror of yesterday's massacre, which followed an explosion in nearby Oslo that killed seven, set off, police said, by the same suspect.
Norwegian media identified him as Anders Breivik, 32, who is said to have right-wing and anti-Muslim views. The blond, blue-eyed Norwegian's Oslo flat was searched by detectives last night.
A police official says the gunman is co-operating. He said: 'He is clear on the point that he wants to explain himself.'
The motive for the attacks was unclear but this morning police said he was co-operating. 'He is clear on the point that he wants to explain himself,' said a spokesman.
He added that the gunman had posted websites with Christian fundamentalist tendencies.
The mass shootings are among the worst in history. With the blast outside the prime minister's office, they formed the deadliest day of terror in Western Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings killed 191.
A police official says the gunman may have had 30 minutes for his killing spree.
Johan Fredriksen said today a SWAT team was put on standby after a bombing in Oslo that killed seven people. One man is thought to have planted the bomb and then headed to the island for the massacre.
When asked how long it took the SWAT team to arrive at the island after the shooting began, Fredriksen said: 'It takes the time it takes to drive fast.' He said that was about 30 minutes.
Police initially said about 10 were killed at the forested camp on the island of Utoya, but some survivors said they thought the toll was much higher. Early today police director Oystein Maeland said they had discovered many more victims.
A SWAT team aim their weapons at a group of youngsters hiding from the gunman. It has emerged that it took 30minutes for armed police to get to the island
Teenagers on the Norwegian holiday island of Utoya had to 'swim for their lives' and hide in trees when the gunman fired indiscriminately at them
Massacre: People are seen on the banks of Utoya after the shooting - the Daily Mail has pixelated this image to avoid causing distress
STAY INDOORS, FOREIGN OFFICE URGES BRITISH VISITORS
Britons in Norway have been urged to stay indoors in the wake of the worst atrocity in the country's post-war history.
Foreign Office travel advice warned there was a high threat from terrorism and called on British nationals to take extra care.
In a statement on its website, the Foreign Office said: 'We recommend that British nationals stay indoors for the time being. British nationals are advised to exercise caution, monitor local media reporting and follow advice given by the emergency services.'
About 250,000 British tourists visit the country every year.
Buckingham Palace said today that the Queen has written to the King of Norway to express her shock and sadness at the attacks in his country. She said her and the Duke of Edinburgh's thoughts were with the Norwegian people.
'It's taken time to search the area. What we know now is that we can say that there are at least 80 killed at Utoya,' Mr Maeland said. "It goes without saying that this gives dimensions to this incident that are exceptional.'
Mr Maeland warned that the death toll could rise and said others were severely injured.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Saturday that he had spent many summers on the island of Utoya, which was hosting a youth retreat for his party.
Utoya is 'my childhood paradise that yesterday was transformed into Hell,' he said at a news conference in the capital at which Storberget also appeared.
A police official said the suspect appeared to have acted alone in both attacks and 'it seems like that this is not linked to any international terrorist organisations at all'.
'This seems like a madman's work,' he added.
The official said the attack 'is probably more Norway's Oklahoma City than it is Norway's World Trade Centre'. Domestic terrorists carried out the 1995 attack on a US government building in Oklahoma City, while foreign terrorists were responsible for the September 11 2001 attacks.
Both attacks were in areas connected to the ruling Labour Party government. The youth camp, about 20 miles north west of Oslo, is organised by the party's youth wing and the prime minister Jens Stoltenberg had been due to speak there today.
An injured man is helped in the immediate aftermath of the powerful explosion that tore apart the government district of Oslo yesterday
Smoke billows from a building shortly after the blast which killed seven people
GUNMAN BECKONED TO TEENAGERS TO COME CLOSER, WHEN THEY DID HE KILLED THEM
The man in the police uniform shouted for the campers to come closer. When they did, he killed them.
The gunman who killed at least 80 people at an island youth camp north west of Oslo used his disguise to lure in his victims, then shot them twice to make sure they were dead, survivors said in the village of Sundvollen, where they were taken after the massacre.
Speaking on the phone to Sky News Adrian Pracon said he heard the killer shout that everyone was going to die.
The 21-year-old said: 'He yelled out that he was going to kill us all and that we must all die. I started speculating and thinking this can't be real because Norwegian people wouldn't attack Norway.'
Mr Pracon also described how he could hear the gunman's boots as he walked along the rocks and felt his breath moments before he shot him in the back.
'I was lying on a rock, face down and I could hear him coming. I could feel his breath.
'As he approached, he shot at me to see if I was dead and fortunately I didn't move so he thought I was dead.
'I was laying there for two hours, still healthy but very cold.'
Before he was shot Mr Pracon said he had tried to escape the island by swimming into the ocean but only managed a short distance before deciding to turn back.
'I jumped into the water like the rest of the people but I did not have time to take my clothes off and it had started to rain.
'When I had swum about 100 metres I felt I had to turn back because I started to get very cold and felt I might meet a certain death.'
Once he reached the shore he saw Breivik who pointed his gun at him.
'I screamed to him, please no please. I didn't know if he didn't want to just kill me because I was one person or if he preferred to kill a group of people.
'Later he started shooting out of nowhere and I was hiding behind the bodies.'
'I saw many dead people," said 15-year old Elise. She just feet away from the gunman when he opened fire in the camp on Utoya island.
Elise said she had just come out from an information meeting in a nearby building when she heard gunshots. She saw a police officer and thought she was safe, but then he started shooting.
'He first shot people on the island. Afterwards he started shooting people in the water," she said.
Elise said she hid behind the same rock that the killer was standing on. "I could hear his breathing from the top of the rock," she said.
In panic, the girl phoned her parents, whispering to them what was going on.
'They told me not to panic and that everything would be OK," she said.
Her parents also told her to get rid of a brightly coloured jacket she was wearing to not draw attention to herself.
She said it was impossible to say how many minutes passed while she was waiting for him to stop.
Survivors described a scene of sheer terror at the camp, which is organised by the youth wing of Norway's ruling Labour party.
Hundreds of young people were eagerly awaiting a speech the prime minister was to give there today.
Police said the man arrested in the shooting is Norwegian and had set off a bomb that killed seven people outside the prime minister's headquarters in Oslo, about 20 miles from the camp.
Several of the survivors seemed calm as anxious parents picked them up at a Sundvollen hotel, but the stories they told were of utter terror.
Dana Berzingi said the fake police officer ordered people to come closer, then pulled weapons and ammunition from a bag and started shooting.
Several victims "had pretended as if they were dead to survive," the 21-year-old said. But after shooting the victims with one gun, the gunman shot them again in the head with a shotgun, he said.
"I lost several friends," said Mr Berzingi, whose trousers were stained with blood. He said he used the mobile phone of one of his fallen friends to call police.
Emilie Bersaas told Sky News she ran inside a school building and hid under a bed when the shooting started.
'At one point the shooting was very, very close (to) the building, I think actually it actually hit the building one time, and the people in the next room screamed very loud," she said.
'I laid under the bed for two hours and then the police smashed a window and came in. It seems kind of unreal, especially in Norway. This is not something that could happen here.'
Another camper, Niclas Tokerud, stayed in touch with his sister through the attack through text messages.
'He sent me a text saying 'there's been gunshots. I am scared (expletive). But I am hiding and safe. I love you,'" said Nadia Tokerud, a 25-year-old graphic designer in Hokksund, Norway.
As he boarded a boat from the island after the danger had passed he sent one more text: "I'm safe.'
A 15-year-old camper named Elise said she heard gunshots, but then saw a police officer and thought she was safe. Then he started shooting people right before her eyes.
'I saw many dead people,' said Elise. 'He first shot people on the island. Afterwards he started shooting people in the water.'
Elise said she hid behind the same rock that the killer was standing on. 'I could hear his breathing from the top of the rock,' she said.
She said it was impossible to say how many minutes passed while she was waiting for him to stop.
At a hotel in the village of Sundvollen, where survivors of the shooting were taken, 21-year-old Dana Berzingi, wearing trousers stained with blood, said the fake police officer ordered people to come closer, then pulled weapons and ammunition from a bag and started shooting.
Several victims 'had pretended as if they were dead to survive,' Mr Berzingi said. But after shooting the victims with one gun, the gunman shot them again in the head with a shotgun, he said.
'I lost several friends,' said Mr Berzingi, who used the mobile phone of one of those friends to call police.
The blast in Oslo, Norway's capital and the city where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, left a square covered in twisted metal, shattered glass and documents expelled from surrounding buildings.
Most of the windows in the 20-floor high-rise where Mr Stoltenberg and his administration work were shattered. Other buildings damaged house government offices and the headquarters of some of Norway's leading newspapers.
The dust-fogged scene after the blast reminded one visitor from New York of September 11.
Ian Dutton, who was in a nearby hotel, said people 'just covered in rubble' were walking through 'a fog of debris'.
'It wasn't any sort of a panic. It was really just people in disbelief and shock, especially in a such as safe and open country as Norway. You don't even think something like that is possible.'
Police said the Oslo explosion was caused by 'one or more' bombs.
A police official, speaking anonymously, said the Oslo bombing occurred at 3.26pm local time (2.26pm BST), and the camp shootings began one to two hours later.
The official said the gunman used both automatic weapons and handguns, and that there was at least one unexploded device at the youth camp that a police bomb disposal team and military experts were working on disarming today.
The suspect had only a minor criminal record, the official said.
National police chief Sveinung Sponheim said seven people were killed by the blast in central Oslo, four of whom have been identified, and that nine or 10 people were seriously injured.
Mr Sponheim said a man was arrested in the shooting, and the suspect had been observed in Oslo before the explosion there.
He said the camp shooter "wore a sweater with a police sign on it. I can confirm that he wasn't a police employee and never has been".
Mr Sponheim told public broadcaster NRK that the suspected gunman's internet postings "suggest that he has some political traits directed towards the right, and anti-Muslim views, but if that was a motivation for the actual act remains to be seen".
Mr Stoltenberg, who was home when the blast occurred and was not harmed, condemned the "cowardly attack on young innocent civilians".
"I have message to those who attacked us," he said. "It's a message from all of Norway: You will not destroy our democracy and our commitment to a better world.'www.dailymail.co.uk
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