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WASHINGTON : A gunman pumped bullets into a dormitory and classrooms at a US university on Monday, killing 32 people and injuring dozens in the bloodiest school shooting in US history, authorities said.
The gunman was also killed, bringing the death toll at Virginia Tech University to a staggering 33, they added.
"The gunman took his own life," campus police chief Wendell Flinchum told reporters.
"It is now confirmed that we have 31 deaths from Norris Hall, including the gunman .... There are two confirmed deaths from the shooting in Ambler Johnston Dormitory," university president Charles Steger said at a news conference.
Student Michael O'Brien told Fox News he was walking across the school's drill field when he heard a gunshot and saw students scrambling out of the building.
"You could see students carrying what looked like bodies out of Norris Hall (the engineering building) and there were ambulances out there that drove down to pick them up and sped off towards the hospital."
Witnesses told CNN that students were jumping from third and fourth story windows to escape the bloodshed.
US President George W. Bush lamented the loss of life at the university some 425 kilometres southwest of Washington.
"Schools should be places of safety and sanctuary and learning," he told 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 carnage surpasses the 15 who died in the April 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado that shocked the nation and world.
Monday's shooting rampage is overshadowed only by a 1927 bombing at a Michigan school that killed 38 children and seven teachers.
Virginian Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum gave only sketchy details of the rampage at the 135-year-old university, noting only that victims were found in "multiple locations" in the classroom building.
Local television quoted witnesses as saying the gunman was a young Asian man, but little else was known about the shooter, including whether or not he was a student.
Virginia Tech cancelled classes and locked down the sprawling engineering and research university which has some 28,000 students and more than 100 buildings spread across 1,040 hectares.
The university hosts students from 35 countries and foreign students make up seven percent of the student body.
The chaos was captured in dramatic cell phone video footage better suited to a war zone than a university with a hail of bullets echoing in the background.
Television showed heavily-armed police rushing across the grounds while witnesses reported scenes of terror and panic with school officials urging people to stay indoors.
"The police officers were trying to, you know, settle everyone down and keep everything under control," Amy Steele, chief editor of the student newspaper, told CNN. "One of the injuries happened from a student jumping out of a window."
Some students were questioning why classes continued hours after the first shootings.
"I was very surprised of that," one unnamed student told Fox. "I was not too worried, but I do think that the school should have had everybody go home. Why didn't they shut down the campus?"
Flinchum said preliminary information indicated the first shooting was "domestic in nature" and that the decision was made not to cancel classes.
"You can second guess all day, but we acted on the best information we had at the time," he said.
The shooting brought international condemnation, with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, due to visit Virginia next month for the 400th anniversary of the arrival of English settlers, said to be "shocked" and "saddened" at the news.
The incident renewed concern over school security and access to guns that was rekindled last year by a rash of shootings. Virginia has some of the country's most lax gun laws and Virginia Tech itself is no stranger to violence.
In August, an escaped prisoner tried to hide on the campus, US media reported. A security guard and a policeman were killed before the man was re-arrested.
Virginia Tech's website also announced that a reward of US$5,000 had been posted on Sunday for information leading to the arrest of those behind two bomb hoaxes at the campus on April 2 and 13. - AFP/de/so
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