Tragedy at VA Tech

UPDATE: ABC News confirms that 29 were killed in the Virginia Tech slayings.

From Reuters, preliminary info on perhaps the worst US school shooting in history:

At least 22 people [figure updated to 29 at press time], including the suspected gunman, were killed and many others were wounded on Monday in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech university, police and university officials said.

The rampage took place in two separate areas of the campus about two hours apart during the morning. Police said they believed a single gunman was responsible.

"This is a tragedy of monumental proportions," Virginia Tech president Charles Steger told reporters.

It was one of the worst shootings on a university campus in the United States since a massacre at the University of Texas in Austin on August 1, 1966. Charles Whitman killed 15 people, including his mother and wife the night before, and wounded 31 others in that shooting.

Virginia Tech, with 26,000 students, is located in the southwest corner of the state, about 240 miles (390 km) from Washington.

From ABC News:

At least 29 people are dead in what may be the biggest mass shooting in American history — and the death toll may rise. At least 17 injured students were admitted to local hospitals. ...

While information had not been released about the gunman, Carter said he suspected that whoever the shooter was suffered from some deep psychological problem and was likely connected to the university campus in some way.

"In the past, in similar cases, it's usually been a psychological issue and not just a security issue," Carter said. "One of the people who was killed was an older individual, maybe a faculty member. That could be a likely underlying factor in this case -- someone who has failed."