Witnesses tell of courage, panic in wake of Bondi Beach shootings

A father-and-son duo opened fire as crowds thronged Australia's famous surf beach for a yearly Jewish celebration on a balmy summer evening, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more.

Confronting tales of heroism and terror trickled out in the hours following Australia's deadliest mass shooting in almost 30 years.

A team of off-duty lifeguards sprinted across the sand to drag children to safety.

"The team ran out under fire to try and clear children from the playground while the gunmen were firing," said Steven Pearce from Surf Life Saving New South Wales.

"They were able to get the children inside," he told AFP.

"The other lifesavers went out and started trying to do CPR on the shot victims, and tried to drag as many inside as they could."

Bleeding victims were carried across the beach atop surfboards turned into makeshift stretchers.

A pregnant woman went into labour after taking refuge in the surf club's headquarters, Pearce said, and was later rushed to hospital.

"We have used every bandage in the surf clubs," said Pearce.

"Teams just ran out of everything."

Fruit seller Ahmed Al Ahmed, 43, was lauded as the man who disarmed one of the attackers.

Footage showed a t-shirt clad man -- later identified as Ahmed by local media -- sneaking up on one of the gunmen.

He briefly tussles with the shooter before knocking him to the ground and wresting away the weapon.

"It's been a very, very brave person, actually, who went and attacked frontally one of the shooters, and saved a lot of lives," US President Donald Trump said of Ahmed.

Churches, bars and restaurants threw open their doors to shelter the panicked crowds sprinting away from the beach.

Frenchman Alban Baton, 23, hid for several hours with other customers in the cool room of a Bondi Beach grocery store.

"It was very fast," he told AFP.

"One girl said: 'There is one guy with a gun'. And from this moment, everybody ran, and it was like survival instinct, so we all run in the cool room," he said.

"Minute after minutes, we were starting to realise what was happening."

Mass shootings have been rare in Australia since a lone gunman killed 35 people in the tourist town of Port Arthur in 1996.

The so-called Port Arthur massacre led to sweeping reforms that would come to be lauded around the world as a gold standard for gun safety.