"I heard screams. I heard people begging for their lives and I heard shots. He just blew them away. I was certain I was going to die."
Erik Kursetgjerde, an 18-year-old Labor Party youth member, described the fear and panic on Utoya island when a gunman staged a methodical massacre on Friday — half an hour after organizers had told people at the youth camp about a bomb attack in Oslo.
"People ran everywhere. They panicked and climbed into trees. People got trampled," Kursetgjerde told Reuters outside a hotel in the town of Sundvollen, near the forested island.
The killer, dressed as a policeman, "would tell people to come over: 'It's OK, you're safe, we're coming to help you.' And then I saw about 20 people come toward him and he shot them at close range," he said.
Kursetgjerde said he ran and hid between cliffs, then swam out into the lake and nearly drowned. "Someone (in a boat) rescued me. They saved my life."
"This lasted for hours," Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told a news conference, describing the killings on the island northwest of Oslo where about 600 young people had gathered.
A 32-year-old Norwegian was arrested after 85 people died in the island shootings, on top of the seven killed in the earlier bomb blast.
"I saw he had a handgun," Thorbjoern Vereive, 22, told Reuters. "Some people said he also had something that looked like a rifle."
"When I swam out into the water he shot all my friends. He shot them when they were running away. I hid in a cave and had to lie in the water. There were people hiding in the cave and he tried to lure people out by saying, 'It's safe, come out.'"
"He picked them out, one by one. He was mostly silent. It looked like it didn't bother him."
"He tried to shoot me and I saw the bullet pass right next to me. I thought I was going to die."
'Bloodbath'
Another youth, Dana Barzingi, described the massacre to state broadcaster NRK. "It was a bloodbath. There was nowhere to flee, only the water, and when people tried to swim away he just shot them."
"He kept coming," said Barzingi. "He went around and around pretending to be a rescue worker and said people should come to get help. Then he shot them."
'Play with me'
Edvard Foernes, 16, who was taking part in the annual youth event for the first time, told Reuters the gunman shouted "Come out and play with me! Don't be shy."
"I was in my tent when the firing started. I thought it was fireworks. Somebody was screaming, 'Get the hell away!' and I thought they were joking. But then I saw people dying," he said.
"There were two people in a ditch. They said, 'Please don't shoot me,' and then he shot them like dogs."
He fled to the lake and plunged in. "The attacker was 10 to 15 meters away from me and was aiming at me in the water."
He said he had lost friends but didn't know how many.
One survivor estimated that the shooting went on for about an hour after starting at around 5:30 p.m. A police spokesman told reporters the shooting took place over a period of almost 90 minutes.
NRK showed blurred pictures taken from a helicopter of a man, apparently in police uniform, standing with his arm outstretched amid numerous victims, some prone on the rocky shore, others floating in the water.
'Please no, please no'
Adrian Pracon, an official at the youth camp, gave a terrifying account to BBC News, describing how people were shot dead around him and he only survived by playing dead.
Pracon, speaking from his hospital bed, said when he first began to hear shooting, he thought it must be some kind of drill. Then he saw people he worked with trying to flee the gunman.
"As they were running, they were shot from behind, falling just in front of me," Pracon said.
He and a group of people then ran into the water and started swimming.
"I was the last man hitting the water and therefore I didn't have time to take my shoes and clothes off," Pracon told the BBC. "I had to return because the boots and clothes were pulling me under."
As he returned, the gunman was on the shore and Pracon thought he was about to die. "He saw me returning, he saw I was almost at the shore and pointed the barrel at me. At that time I yelled and cried 'Please no, please no.'"
Pracon told the BBC that for some reason the gunman "spared my life."
He said he lay down on the shore among a number of dead bodies and tried to play dead.
"Then there approached 10 people. He started shooting at every single person, they were crying, they were screaming, people were falling over me. These were my friends," Pracon told the BBC. "While I was playing [dead], I had to shield myself with people. By playing dead, I believed I saved my own life."
Pracon said he was shot in the back at close range by the gunman. "I didn't look up to see him ... but I could feel the warm air from the barrel. My left ear had an injury because of the blast when I got shot. It felt like someone hit me."
He told the BBC that he lay perfectly still and thought the gunman must have believed that he was dead.
Boy, 11, chased by gunman
Pracon, who was in hospital with what he described as a low-priority wound, said at one point during the killings, a boy aged about 11 ran up to him. "He said his dad was just shot and now the gunman is after him," he said.
Another survivor, Emilie Bersaas, told Sky News she heard gunshots, fled to nearby building and hid under a bed.
"The shooting came from all different directions," she said. "It was very terrifying. At one point the shooting was very, very close to the building — I think it actually hit the building one time."
Survivor Jorgen Benone spoke of "total chaos" on the island.
"I saw people being shot. I tried to sit as quietly as possible. I was hiding behind some stones. I saw him once, just 20, 30 metres away from me. I thought 'I'm terrified for my life', I thought of all the people I love," he said.
"I saw some boats but I wasn't sure if I could trust them. I didn't know who I could trust any more," he added. "I think several lost their lives as they tried to get over to the mainland."
Anita Lien, 42, who lives by Tyrifjord lake, a few hundred yards from Utoya, said she saw about 50 people swimming toward the shore from the island.
"People were crying, shaking, they were terrified," said "They were so young, between 14 and 19 years old."
Others sought shelter in buildings as shots echoed across the island that was hosting the annual camp for the youth wing of the Labour Party, the dominant force in politics since World War Two. Others fled into the woods or tried to swim to safety.
Boats searched for survivors into the night, searchlights sweeping the coast. Rescue helicopters flew overhead.
Reuters and msnbc.com contributed to this report.