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The gunman behind the deadliest shooting rampage in American history was an 24-year-old Asian male who was a student at the university and a dormitory resident, university president Charles Steger told CNN last night.
Steger not did give the gunman's name.
The man arrived in the United States last August on a student visa.
Police have made a preliminary identification of the man, who reportedly shot himself in the face after killing 32 people and injuring 15 at two sites on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Some students have bitterly complained that they got no warning from the university until an email that arrived more than two hours after the first shots.
"I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," said one student, Billy Bason, 18.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the gunman may have arrived in San Francisco on United Airlines on August 7 on a visa issued in Shanghai.
Virginia Tech police chief Wendell Flinchum said officers had made a "preliminary" identification, but declined to give further details.
Trey Perkins, who was in a German class in Norris Hall - where the majority of the victims were killed - told the Washington Post the gunman barged into the room about 9.50am and fired 30 shots in about a minute and a half.
Police said he appeared to have used chains to lock the doors and prevent terrified victims escaping.
The gunman first shot a professor in the head, then turned on the students.
The man had a "very serious but very calm look on his face".
A doctor said the victims all had multiple injuries.
"Even the least injured had multiple gunshot wounds. This guy was just ... he was out to kill everyone he came in contact with, not just to shoot the gun," said Joseph Cacioppo, an emergency-room physician.
Erin Sheehan, who was also in the German class, said she was one of only four of the about two dozen people in the class to walk out of the room. The rest were dead or wounded.
The gunman "peeked in twice, earlier in the lesson, like he was looking for someone, somebody, before he started shooting", she said.
The gunman "was just a normal-looking kid, Asian, but he had on a Boy Scout-type outfit. He wore a tan button-up vest, and this black vest, maybe it was for ammo or something."
"I saw bullets hit people's bodies," Ms Sheehan said. "There was blood everywhere."
Israeli media reported that one of the dead was Liviu Librescu, an Israeli citizen and professor of engineering at the university.
Professor Librescu's son said his father tried to block his classroom door against the gunman and urged his students to flee.
The first two victims were killed about 7.15am local time at West Ambler Johnston dormitory.
The girl who may have sparked the massacre was last night named as 18-year-old Emily Jane Hilscher. She was identified with another victim, 22-year-old Ryan Clark.
The pair were neighbours on the fourth floor of the dormitory, according to Britain's Daily Mail.
Reports in the US suggest the gunman was involved in an argument with his girlfriend and stormed out of the dormitory building.
A counsellor was called to calm the situation but the gunman returned and shot his girlfriend and Mr Clark.
It is not known if Mr Clark was involved with the girl but one theory is that the gunman may have believed he was.
Friends of him and Ms Hilscher last night posted messages of tribute on the internet social-networking site "Facebook" and other blogs remembering her as a vibrant girl with an engaging personality.
"Emily was a kind and wonderful person who always put a smile on my face," wrote Jessica Gould.
Mr Clark - a prefect in the dormitory - was in his fifth year at Virginia Tech and a leader in the university's marching band.
"He was such a friendly person," said friend Sarah Davis, 21, a trombone player in the band.
Virginia Tech president Charles Steger said the campus was "shocked and indeed horrified", but he also faced difficult questions about whether the university did enough to warn students.
Dr Steger defended its conduct, saying authorities believed the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.
"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," Dr Steger said.
The university had closed the dormitory after the first attack and decided to rely on email to spread the word.
But with 11,000 people driving on to the campus, it had been difficult to get the word out.
He said that before the email was sent, the university began telephoning resident advisers and sent people to knock on doors.
Students were warned to stay away from the windows.
"We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time," Dr Steger said.
Until yesterday, the deadliest shooting in modern US history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard shot 23 people to death, then killed himself.
Yesterday's massacre took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High massacre in Colorado. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.
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