UPDATE: 2:40 p.m. Gunman kills at least 31 at Virginia Tech in deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history

BLACKSBURG, Va. – A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing at least 30 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history, government officials told The Associated Press. The gunman was killed, bringing the death toll to 31, but it was unclear if he was shot by police or took his own life.\n“Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,” said Virginia Tech president Charles Steger. “The university is shocked and indeed horrified.”\nThe name of the gunman was not immediately released, and investigators offered no motive for the attack. It was not immediately known if the gunman was a student.\nFBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington said there was no immediate evidence to suggest it was a terrorist attack, “but all avenues will be explored.”\nThe shootings spread panic and confusion on campus, with witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire.\nThe bloodbath took place at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory that houses 895 people, and continuing about two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building about 2,000 feet away, authorities said.\nPolice said they were still investigating the shooting at the dorm when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.\nAfter the first shots were fired, students were warned to stay indoors and away from the windows. But some students said they thought the precautions had been lifted by the time the second burst of gunfire was heard.\nSome of the dead were students. One student was killed in the dorm, and the others were killed in the classroom, said Virginia Tech Police Chief W.R. Flinchum.\nUp until Monday, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.\nThe massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.\nThe deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard drove his pickup into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.