Virginia Shootings:Students at yesterday's vigil at Virginia Tech were angry at the college for failing to issue a warning after the first shootings, writes Denis Stauntonin Blacksburg, Virginia.
The athletics stadium at Virginia Tech was a mass of burgundy and orange yesterday as thousands of students wore the college colours in memory of the 33 people who lay dead after Cho Seung-Hui's shooting spree on Monday.
For the United States, it was the biggest mass shooting in the nation's history. For the students on this vast, modern campus, however, it was a much more intimate trauma.
"Shock and anger. Shock and anger. That's all anyone feels today," said Brandon Buck (22), an aviation student who came to yesterday's memorial event.
As they watched the president, George Bush, express the sympathy of the entire nation on a giant screen in the stadium, some students held one another and whispered words of comfort but most just sat there looking blank, as if the reality of Monday's horror had yet to sink in.
"It's just starting to sink in now but it will take a while, I think. All classes have been cancelled for the rest of the week, so I think we're all going home. I don't know," said Kate Threadford (21).
Although she too is an English major, Threadford did not know Cho, the Korean immigrant who was described as a loner before he came to Virginia Tech. At his high school in Fairfax County, a Virginia suburb of Washington DC, he was regarded as quiet and, some said, a little strange.
The bicycles were still chained up yesterday outside Harper Hall, the dormitory where Cho lived, but the blinds were drawn in almost every window and the building was deserted.
At West Amber Johnston Hall nearby, where the first of Monday's shootings took place, a few bunches of flowers lay beside a tree.
If the mood at Virginia Tech was sombre, few students sought to hide the anger they felt towards the college authorities who failed to issue a warning after the first shootings. While police were investigating the incident at the dormitory, classes were continuing as normal elsewhere on campus, allowing Cho to stage his second, more deadly attack in a German class at the Norris Hill building.
"I'm outraged," said Jeff Mettam (21), a finance major. "When there's a shooting at school, you close it immediately".
Economics major Louis Pavia (21) said he couldn't understand why it took more than two hours to warn students that there was a gunman on the loose. "We didn't even know anything was going on until the guy was already dead himself," he said.
This southwestern corner of Virginia is a God-fearing place where every other radio station is a Christian one and faith plays an important role for many. Christian groups have descended on Virginia Tech to offer practical and spiritual help.
It's also gun country, however, and nobody I met saw a connection between Monday's killings and the fact that Cho was able to legally buy two semi-automatic pistols and numerous rounds of ammunition during the past few weeks.
Buck saw no reason why Virginia should tighten its gun control laws because of the massacre. "People who commit felonies with guns are felons to begin with. Taking guns out of the hands of everyone else would just give an advantage to people who are prepared to come by them illegally," he said.
Mettan agreed, adding that no law could prevent someone like Cho from killing if he really wanted to.
"I mean, he could have walked in there with a bunch of swords or something," he said.
As they prepared to leave Virginia Tech for the rest of the week, many of the students wondered if they would ever feel the same way about the Home of the Hokies, as the university is known.
Buck said he wasn't sure what impact Monday's tragedy would have in the long term, but he knew he would feel differently from now on.
"You just don't feel safe. You feel like anything could happen," he said.