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BLACKSBURG, United States : A mixture of anger and sadness swept across the United States on Tuesday as police hunted for clues into what motivated a gunman to kill at least 30 people in the nation's deadliest ever school shooting.
Gunshots and screams rang across the campus of Virginia Tech University Monday morning, as some panicked students leapt from windows and others feigned death to escape the shooter before he eventually turned the gun on himself.
Yet key questions about the crime remained unanswered, including the identity of the shooter, what motivated him, and whether or not he acted alone.
It was also unclear whether two incidents -- an early morning shooting inside a dormitory that killed two people and a rampage in another building two hours later that saw 31 killed, including the gunman -- were connected.
"We are working very, very hard to determine if these two incidents are related," campus police chief Wendell Flinchum told reporters after the shootings which came almost eight years to the day since the Columbine High School massacre.
Meanwhile, anger was mounting among relatives and friends of the victims as they demanded to know why campus officials did not shut down the school after the first incident.
"There was a long lapse between the first incident and the second where 31 people, including the gunman, died and I can't really understand," said student John Reaves, 22.
Flags were to hang at half-mast across the state of Virginia and more details of the crime were expected to emerge at a news conference at 9:00 am (1300 GMT). Mourners planned to stage a candlelight vigil in the evening.
On Monday, a visibly shaken campus police chief told of a crime scene that stretched across multiple locations, and said the first shooting had appeared to be "domestic in nature" so authorities did not close the whole school.
The shooter, described by students as "Asian-looking" and wearing a brown hiking shirt and black combat-style vest, carried no identification on him. Police declined to release his name but said a preliminary identification had been made.
Student Erin Sheehan survived along with a handful of classmates in a 20-plus member German class after the shooter barged in twice and fired repeatedly.
"He seemed very thorough about it, getting almost everyone down. I was trying to act dead," she said.
"He left for about 30 seconds, came back in, did almost exactly the same thing. I guess he heard us still talking," she said.
Police investigators were still gathering evidence from the crime scene more than 12 hours after the killings. Police said they had no suspects in custody but had interviewed a "person of interest."
One of the victims was identified as Ryan Clark, a young man who was shot in the dormitory in the morning. A woman was also killed in that incident, but her name was not released.
After the second shooting began, police had rushed to Norris Hall where they "found the front doors barricaded, chained shut from the inside," said university president Charles Steger.
Police broke into the building and heard gunshots on the second floor.
"Just as officers reached the second floor the gunshots stopped," Steger said.
Two weapons were recovered, and ballistics examination would reveal whether the two shootings were connected, police said.
US President George W. Bush lamented the loss of life at the university some 425 kilometres (264 miles) 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."
The carnage surpassed the 15 who died in the April 20, 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado that shocked the nation and the world.
The shooting brought international condemnation, and also renewed concern over school security and access to guns that was rekindled last year by a rash of shootings.
Virginia Tech, located amid rolling hills in the Blue Ridge mountains, cancelled classes and locked down the sprawling engineering and research university which has some 26,000 students and 10,000 staff.
- AFP/ir
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