North Yorkshire and County Durham tourists tell of their experiences during Tunisia terror attack that left 15 Britons dead

Authorities said 38 holidaymakers were killed in the Tunisian beach massacre.

Prime Minister David Cameron has warned that the public should be "prepared for the fact that many of those killed were British".

Scotland Yard today said police travelled to Tunisia to help investigate the killings and officers are also interviewing tourists returning at British airports.

Holiday firm Tui, which runs the Thomson and First Choice brands, said that a number of those who died were its customers.

Gunman Seifeddine Rezgui was said to have laughed and joked as he targeted British and French tourists and sprayed them with gunfire. He was shot dead by police.

Speaking to ITV Tyne Tees from the resort of Sousse, Ellie Makin, from Ripon, said: "I was on a sunbed on the beach when I happened to look right. All I saw was a gun and an umbrella being dropped and then he started firing to the right hand side of us.

"If he'd fired to the left, I don't know what would have happened.

Picture: ITV Tyne Tees

Ellie, pictured right, and her friend Debbie Horsfall fled the beach but back at the hotel the gunman appeared below them in the foyer and the shooting started again.

"We got split up at this point. I ran into someone's room and hid," said Ellie.

"I think we're quite lucky."

The attackers rushed into the Imperial Marhaba hotel in the resort town of Sousse in the latest attack on the North African country's key tourism industry. At least six other people were wounded.

The fatalities include also include Tunisians, Germans and Belgians, Tunisia's Health Ministry said this afternoon.

Wielding Kalashnikovs, the gunmen entered from the beach, said ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui.

Security forces responded, killing one of the attackers, while the hunt for the second is continuing, he said.

"A terrorist infiltrated the buildings from the back before opening fire on the residents of the hotel, including foreigners and Tunisians," he told the state news agency.

During the holy month of Ramadan Tunisia's Muslim population is less likely to go the beach, so those there would have been predominantly foreign tourists.

Local radio said most of the dead were German or British.

One gunman was said to have been killed and another was pursued in the resort, a popular holiday destination for Britons.

The outrage took place in the popular resort of Al-Qantawi in the city of Sousse, about 80 miles from the capital Tunis on the Mediterranean coast.

Former soldier Steve Walls, from Malton, in North Yorkshire, was staying with his wife Jacqui in the resort and helped gunshot victims on the beach, Mr Walls said he fled when he saw the gunmen advancing on his position.

Mr Walls, 60, then faced an agonising two-hour wait for news of his wife Jacqui, who had been sheltering in a nearby hotel.

The couple were halfway through a two-week holiday, staying at the Riu Belleview Park hotel, when the attackers struck.

Mr Walls heard shots and ran towards the beach in search of his wife, as crowds ran away.

"I didn't think of my own safety, I knew there would be people injured," he said.

"I was trying to find Jacqui and trying to comfort people who were injured. I put a tourniquet on a woman's shoulder, and helped a man with a gunshot wound to his stomach."

Jennifer Brown, who works for The Northern Echo and is from Darlington, was staying in the neighbouring resort of Monastir, about 15 minutes walk away.

She said: "Within minutes people started getting phone calls from worried relatives back home.

"The beach just emptied. Now it's like a ghost town out there - we can see armed police patrolling the beach from our hotel balcony."

Thomas Cook, which has holidaymakers in the resort, said: "We are currently gathering information and will provide an update as soon as possible. Our teams on the ground are offering every support to our customers and their families in the area."

ATTACK: Injured people are treated on a Tunisian beach. Picture: Tunisia TV1

Meanwhile, in France an attacker with suspected ties to French Islamic radicals rammed a car into a gas factory, and the severed head of his boss was hung from a post at the entrance, officials said.

Two more people were injured in the attack in in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, south-east of Lyon, authorities said.

President Francois Hollande, speaking in Brussels, said the attack began when a car crashed through the gate of the factory and ploughed into gas canisters, touching off an explosion.

"No doubt about the intention - to cause an explosion," he said, calling the attack "of a terrorist nature".

Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said a man who had been flagged in 2006 for suspected ties to extremists was seized by an alert firefighter, and was one of multiple people in custody after the attack.

A security official said the victim was the head of a local transportation company who is believed to have been killed before the explosion. His name was not released.

Authorities said his body was found near the site of the attack.

Mr Cazeneuve said: "People who could have participated in this abject crime are in custody."

He added that the suspect was known to intelligence services who had him under surveillance from 2006 to 2008. The man is from the Lyon region, he said.

One of the injured is carries from the beach on a sun lounger

The head was found staked on a gate at the factory's entrance, in what appeared to be an echo of the Islamic State group's practice of beheading prisoners and displaying their heads for all to see.

An official said two flags - one white and one black, both with Arabic inscriptions - were found nearby.

The industrial site belongs to Air Products, a US chemical company based in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

France went on high alert after attacks in January against the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, a kosher grocery store and a policewoman that left 20 people dead in the Paris region, including three Islamic extremist attackers.

Since then, fears of copycat attacks have risen. One person was arrested after authorities said he was plotting to target churches in the Paris region. Mr Cazeneuve said security has been heightened at religious sites around the country.

Meanwhile, Tunisia has been plagued by terror attacks since overthrowing its secular dictator in 2011, although they have only recently targeted the vital tourism sector.

In March, two gunmen attacked the national museum in Tunis killing at least 22 people, all but one of them tourists. A group pledging allegiance to the radical Islamic State group claimed that attack and promised more in Tunisia.

Tourism is a major part of the Tunisian economy, especially in coastal resorts like Sousse and it suffered in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution.

Mr Cameron, who today chaired a second meeting of the Government's emergency Cobra committee, said his "thoughts and prayers are with the loved ones of those killed or injured".

Speaking in Downing Street, he said: "These savage terrorist attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and France are a brutal and tragic reminder of the threat faced around the world from these evil terrorists."

Undated handout screengrab taken from the SITE Intelligence Group website purporting to show the Tunisian hotel gunman Seifeddine Rezgui

He added: "We are working with the Tunisian authorities to identify the final number of British casualties but I'm afraid that the British public need to be prepared for the fact that many of those killed were British."

Mr Cameron insisted "we will defeat" Islamic extremists waging terror around the world.

Speaking outside the Tui UK building near Gatwick Airport today, Peter Long, joint CEO of Tui Group, said he was "deeply, deeply shocked".

"And our whole organisation is reeling with pain to see the suffering that has taken place in Tunisia."

He added that the company's directors from locations across the UK confirmed that so far it has repatriated 1,000 customers and that 5,400 still remained in the area, with everything being done to help those who wanted to return to get on flights.