Gunman shoots himself after US campus rampageA lone gunman has committed suicide after killing 32 people in a rampage at the Virginia Tech university campus in the USA.
"The gunman took his own life. All I can tell you is that he's a male," campus police chief Wendell Flinchum told reporters.
Virginia Tech president Dr Charles Steger confirmed that 33 people, including the gunman, had died in the deadliest shooting rampage on a campus in US history.
Most of those killed were students attending classes at a hall where the gunman apparently used chains to lock doors before shooting the victims, university and police officials said.
Fifteen people were wounded in the shootings, including people who had been shot and some who were hurt after jumping from windows to escape the gunfire.
"We have not confirmed the identity of the gunman because he carried no identification on his person and we are in the process of attempting that identification," Dr Steger said.
The university hosts at least one Australian exchange student but the Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that at this stage there are no reports of Australians being killed or injured.
Two areas attackedThe rampage took place in two separate areas, first at a dormitory as students had begun crisscrossing the sprawling campus for morning classes, and then about two hours later at an engineering and science school almost a kilometre away.
The attacks sparked panic and chaos.
A student journalist's video of the chaos was replayed repeatedly on US television networks.
It showed people scurrying around the campus and more than two dozen shots ringing out.
Students told CNN there were multiple bomb threats to the campus in the last few weeks, with two of the threats aimed at the university's science and engineering school.
The first shooting was reported to campus police at about 7.15am local time in West Ambler Johnston Hall, a dormitory housing some 900 students.
It was followed by more shooting at Norris Hall, site of the science and engineering school that has given the university much of its fame as a leading technical institute in the United States.
During the two hours after the first shooting some students had ventured out again.
University police were investigating the first shooting at the dormitory when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.
Student Justin Merrifield told Reuters he was outside West Ambler dormitory at 9am (local time) when he saw police and a crying student but did not realise the magnitude of the crisis until he arrived at his 10am class.
Mr Merrifield says students were alerted by campus loudspeakers.
"There was a voice that just kept repeating, 'Gunman on campus, stay indoors, get away from windows,' over and over, basically," Mr Merrifield said.
Australian witnessesAustralian Christopher Hull works at the university and said he heard a series of shots being fired as he hid in his office.
"It was very rapid fire and that stopped and then there was another burst of gunfire," he said.
"I can't remember the exact details of it - it all happened very quickly - it was probably less than 50 metres away. I heard a number of gun shots - probably 15 or 20 and then all of sudden a lot of students came running out of the building.
"Some appeared hurt and then there were more shots and very soon after that heavily armed police turned up."
Mr Hull confirmed that people had thrown themselves out of windows to escape the gunman.
"They jumped out of second-floor windows. I think a couple of them hurt their ankles or broke their ankles," he said.
"One guy was crawling across the grass, another student came back to help him and then later on waves of students came running out holding their hands above their heads, then they started bringing out wounded people."
An Australian exchange student at Virginia Tech told Channel Seven she was lucky to be alive.
Leslie Gerrard, from Gympie in south-east Queensland, was speaking this morning from the campus, which she said had been locked down.
"I have classes actually in Norris Hall where the shootings took place, on Mondays in the afternoon," she said.
"Although this week my classes were online I can totally picture the room where these people would have been. It just hits home how lucky I am that I could have actually been in that situation when that occurred."
University criticisedOne student criticised how university officials reacted.
"I'm pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 o'clock in the morning and the first email about it had no mention of locking down the campus, no mention of canceling classes," Jason Piatt told CNN.
"They just mentioned that they were investigating a shooting," he said. "That's pretty ridiculous. Meanwhile, while they sent out that e-mail, 21 people got killed."
Dr Steger, facing a barrage of questions over the university's initial response, stressed that its efforts to alert students could not possibly reach the thousands of people moving around the campus at the start of the school day.
"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," Dr Steger said of the first shooting.
Classes have been cancelled for Monday and Tuesday and counsellors are being brought in to talk to the students.
Condolences from BushUS President George W Bush lamented the loss of life at the university, some 425 kilometres south-west of Washington.
"Schools should be places of safety and sanctuary and learning," Mr Bush reporters.
"When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community. Today our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech."
The death toll was worse than a massacre at the University of Texas in Austin on August 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman, a 25-year-old student, killed 13 people and wounded 31 in a 90-minute spree.
Thirty-five people lost their lives when a gunman went on the rampage at Port Arthur in Tasmania in 1996.
- AFP/Reuters
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