German politicians extended condolences Tuesday to the United States over the deadliest ever shooting rampage at a university, which killed 33 and injured more than a dozen.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, expressed her sympathy to U.S. President George W. Bush and the American people.

Social Democratic Party leader Kurt Beck said he had experienced the events of April 16 at Virginia Tech University in the town of Blacksburg with "terrible sorrow."

He said that while school attacks were not necessarily unpreventable, laws could be stepped up to "at least hinder or restrict" access to "certain forms of weaponry."

Edmund Stoiber, the head of the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats, said the fact that more than 30 people could be "mowed down" was "beyond what is humanly imaginable."

A total of 33 people, including the gunman, were killed in two shooting incidents Monday at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in the eastern U.S. state of Virginia.

Virginia Tech police chief Wendell Flinchum said at a press conference Tuesday that the gunman was a 23-year-old South Korean named Cho Seung-Hui.

Meanwhile, Colonel Steve Flaherty, Superintendent of Virginia State Police, said the same gun was used in the two shootings at the university, suggesting there was only one gunman.

Source: Xinhua