[BBC] – A gunman has killed at least four people at a club hosting an electronic music festival in the Mexican resort of Playa del Carmen, the organisers say.

People attending the BPM festival’s closing night at the Blue Parrot club said they had heard shots and saw bodies lying on the ground.

At least 12 people were injured. Reports of a second shooting at The Jungle venue, where another BPM event was taking place, have not been confirmed.

BPM festival officials released a statement on Facebook saying that “a lone shooter” outside the Blue Parrot nightclub had killed four people.

They said three of those killed were members of the festival’s security team “whose lives were lost while trying to protect patrons inside the venue”. No information about the fourth victim has so far been released.

‘Shots mistaken for fireworks’

The festival, which is in its 10th year, is popular with foreign tourists, especially from the United States and the United Kingdom. Valerie Lee, US editor of electronic dance and clubbing magazine Mixmag, was at the Blue Parrot when the shooting happened.

She told BBC Newsbeat that a security guard at first told her and her friends not to worry, that the sound was that of fireworks outside. But when other people said they had seen a gunman, Ms Lee ran to a backstage exit and left the club.

Sidney Charles tweeted that he was DJing at the time of the shooting at the Blue Parrot.