Tragedy struck the campus of Virginia Tech on Monday when an unidentified gunman shot and killed 32 people, and then shot himself, in the worst campus shooting in U.S history.
According to local media reports, 26 other students were hospitalized with injuries. Authorities are in the process of contacting the next of kin of the victims, whose names are still being released. Concerned families and friends were gathering at the Inn at Virginia Tech, hoping to learn the fate of missing loved ones.
The gunman has been identified as Cho Seung-Hui, an undergraduate student at Virginia Tech. Cho, 23-year-old South Korean native in his senior year at the university, turned his weapon on himself after the shooting rampage.
Reports indicate that Cho used a 9 mm and a .22 caliber pistol in the shootings.
It was nine years ago this week that 13 people were killed at Columbine High School in Colorado in what was one of the worst—and certainly one of the most shocking—campus shootings before today's tragedy.
The shootings took place on Virginia Tech's 2,600-acre main campus; they began in a dormitory, West Ambler Johnston Hall, and ended in Norris Hall, an engineering building.
Virginia Tech was established in 1872 and is situated in the small town of Blacksburg, Virginia, 36 miles southwest of Roanoke. The total student population, on and off campus, is 28,469, with 26,370 students living in on-campus housing.
In a statement on the university's web site, President Charles Steger said that the "university is shocked and horrified that this would befall our campus." According to university officials, campus police were called at 7:15 a.m. on Monday about the shootings at West Ambler Johnston Hall.
The deaths of the multiple victims were being investigated by police when reports of a second shooting farther south on campus were received 2 hours later.
The university closed the campus for the remainder of the day and cancelled all classes for Tuesday. A special convocation service has been scheduled for today, at a building immediately adjacent to the location where the second round of shootings took place.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, since 1966, there have been 89 shooting deaths at various U.S. universities and college campuses. The murders at Virginia Tech campus are by far the highest in U.S. history.