BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Thousands of students, faculty and area residents poured into the center of the Virginia Tech campus Tuesday night to grieve, holding candles aloft as speakers urged them to find solace in one another.

Student affairs vice-president Zenobia Hikes vowed that everyone will move on, but that they must rely on each other. Hikes also asked for the prayers of the world to survive.

Slideshow: VT Candlelight Vigil

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush and Gov. Timothy Kaine were among the speakers at a convocation Tuesday afternoon in the school's basketball arena, the day after a gunman was suspected of killing 32 people before fatally shooting himself.

"Laura and I have come to Blacksburg today with hearts full of sorrow," Bush said. "This is a day of mourning for the Virginia Tech community, and it is a day of sadness for our entire nation."

"In this time of anguish, I hope you know that people all over this country are thinking about you and asking God to provide comfort for all who have been affected," Bush said.

Kaine and his wife had just returned from Tokyo where they were supposed to start a two-week trade mission promoting the state.

"This is a very bitter and sad day, and there is nowhere else in the world we would rather be than with you at this moment," Kaine said. "The world was watching you yesterday, and in the darkest moment in the history of this university, the world saw you respond and respond in a way that builds community."

Cho Seung-Hui, 23, the suspected gunman, was identified Tuesday as an English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service.

News reports also said that he may have been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic, and that he left a note in his dorm in which he railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of Virginia Tech's English department, said she did not personally know the gunman. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department's director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as "troubled," based on some of his writing.

Rude said Cho was referred to the counseling service, but she said she did not know when or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws.

The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site that he left a note in his dorm room that included a rambling list of grievances and that he had recently set a fire in a dorm room and stalked some women.

Investigation Ongoing

Virginia Tech's police chief identified Cho, a resident legal alien from South Korea, as the main suspect in the shootings.

A 9 mm handgun and .22-caliber handgun were recovered from Norris Hall, university officials said in a news release. The release said ballistic tests on the evidence seized from the Norris Hall and the West Ambler Johnston Residence Hall scenes were conducted at the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lab in Maryland. Lab results confirmed that one of the two weapons seized in Norris Hall was used in both shootings.

Col. W. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said it was reasonable to assume that Cho was the shooter in both attacks but that the link was not yet definitive.

"At this time, the evidence does not conclusively identify Cho Seung-Hui as the gunman at both locations," said Flaherty. "With this newfound ballistics evidence, we are now able to proceed to the next level of this complex investigation."

State, local and federal investigators spent the night collecting, processing and analyzing evidence from within Norris Hall. The deceased were recovered from at least four classrooms on the second floor and a stairwell of Norris Hall. Cho, who took his life, was discovered by police in a classroom among the victims, according to a university news release.

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger had previously said an Asian university student killed 30 people in a campus building before turning the gun on himself.

And though Steger did not explicitly say the student was also the gunman in the first shooting, he told CNN that he did not believe there was another shooter.

A witness who survived the shooting described the gunman as "just a normal-looking kid" who was Asian.

Student Erin Sheehan was in a German class attacked by a gunman. She told the student newspaper the gunman had on what she called a "Boy Scout-type outfit," and was wearing a "tan button-up vest" as well as a "black vest."

Another student in the class, Trey Perkins, told The Washington Post the gunman was about 19 years old and had a "very serious but very calm look on his face."

Perkins said the gunman first shot the professor in the head and then fired on the students.

Investigators offered no motive for the attack.

University Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said one student was killed in the first shooting -- at a dormitory -- and the others were killed in an academic building.

University officials said the shootings happened at opposite ends of the campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a coed dorm that houses 895 people. The second shooting was about two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building.

Flinchum has not said if the two shootings were connected.

When questioned why the campus wasn't locked down after the first incident, he said they had reason to believe that the shooting at West Ambler Johnston was isolated.

"We had some reason to believe the shooter was leaving campus, possibly the state," Steger said.

Steger described the events as an incident of "tragic proportions."

"The university is shocked and horrified that this would befall us," Steger said.

Patients Improving

Scott Hill, the CEO of Montgomery Regional Medical Center, said the nine patients at his hospital and the three others at Lewis Gale Medical Center in nearby Salem are all in stable condition.

"We're delighted that all the patients at our two hospitals are in stable condition," he said.

Hill said one of the patients at Lewis Gale was expected to be discharged today.

Officials Relay Timeline

Steger offered reporters a timeline of Monday's shootings, first at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then at a classroom building, where 30 people plus a gunman died.

Steger said at 9:45 a.m. EDT, there was a 911 call reporting a shooting at Norris Hall, the second crime scene.

Steger said when officers arrived there, they found the front doors chained shut from the inside. The officers were able to force their way in. Once inside, they heard gunshots from the second floor. Steger said just as the officers reached the second floor, the gunshots stopped, and the gunman was found dead.

Response Criticized

Some students complained there were no public-address announcements or other warnings on campus after the first burst of gunfire. They said the first word they received was an e-mail more than two hours into the rampage -- around the time of the second shooting.

Steger said 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," Steger said.

"The university decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means of notifying people, but with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out to everyone," he said.

Steger defended the delay in warning students about the gunman. By the time students started receiving e-mail alerts, the second shooting had begun.

The university was trying to notify students who were already on campus, not those who were commuting in, Steger said. He said he thought the best way to keep students safe was to confine them to their classrooms.

The shootings spread panic and confusion on campus, with witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. Students and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive.

Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, Va., told The Associated Press that the shooting happened on the fourth floor of the dorm, one floor above her room. Kanode said students are "locked in our dorms surfing the Internet trying to figure out what's going on."

According to the school's Web site, the school closed Monday and classes have been canceled all week. The university will open for administrative operations Wednesday.