A gunman disguised as a policeman killed at least 16 people, including a female police officer, in the worst mass shooting in Canada’s modern history.

The 12-hour rampage started late on Saturday and ended with a car chase.

Police said the suspect shot people at different locations in Nova Scotia, many of them randomly. He was killed in a confrontation with police.

He was reported to have been driving what looked like a police car.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the attack as “a terrible situation”.

Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil told reporters this was “one of the most senseless acts of violence in our province’s history”.

Media captionCanadian Prime Minister Trudeau on ‘terrible situation’

What do we know about what happened?

Police began receiving calls about shots being fired at a home in Portapique about 22:00 local time (01:00 GMT on Sunday), the Globe and Mail reports.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers arrived to find “several casualties” inside and outside the home, but did not find the suspect.

The alleged attacker, who was later identified by Nova Scotia police tweets as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, owned two large properties in the village, the Globe says.

At 23:30, RCMP tweeted that officers were responding to a firearms complaint in the area, and advised residents to lock themselves indoors. While officers descended on the scene, a series of fires broke out around the community, and then later at homes about 40km (25 miles) north, the Globe reports.

Neighbours told the newspaper that Mr Wortman set fire to his home and several buildings on the property, and shot people when they ran out of their homes.

RCMP continued pursuing Mr Wortman for hours, following a series of crime scenes that police said were “scattered across the province” and which police are still working to piece together.