According to Ms Moore's account, the gunman then had students lie on the ground before he told them to stand up and state their religion before he opened fire, the newspaper reported. Ms Moore lay on the ground with people who had been shot. Students, staff and faculty are evacuated from Umpqua Community College in Roseburg on Thursday. Credit:AP The 26-year-old gunman, named as Chris Harper Mercer, began his rampage sometime after 10am and police received their first calls at 10.38am. The gunman was killed during a shootout with police, though it has not been confirmed how he died. The shooting took place in a science building, and the gunman went through multiple classrooms, according to one report.

The Oregon Governor, Kate Brown, confirmed the gunman was dead. She said he was a 20-year-old man, although his age was later revised to 26. Students and staff are evacuated after a deadly shooting. Credit:AP Ms Brown said her prayers were with victims and their families, and with emergency workers who had confronted the harrowing scene. Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said that, at 10.38am, police first received phone calls reporting an active shooter in one of the classrooms. Friends and family are reunited with students after the shooting. Credit:AP

Responding officers arrived and exchanged gunfire, and the gunman was killed. The Portland Oregonian newspaper said that at least six patients were critically injured in the shooting, citing an official with Life Flight. A spokeswoman for the Douglas County Sheriff's department confirmed to Reuters that there was a shooting at the Umpqua Community College campus in Roseburg. "Active shooter scene is code 4. Multiple casualties all pt's transported," the Douglas County Fire Department said in a tweet.

Authorities cordoned off the entire area around the college. Surviving students were taken by bus to a nearby fairground as the wounded were treated and taken to hospital. An emergency worker told CNN of finding "multiple patients" in several classrooms. It is understood that authorities are now going over the as-yet unnamed suspect's social media accounts. The site of the shooting is a vocational college, which serves more than 13,000 students, 3000 of them full time. Fall (autumn) term began at the college on Monday.

Shelly Stefanich, a spokeswoman for Mercy Medical Centre in Roseburg, said that the hospital was the only one in town. The centre said on Facebook that the hospital had received nine patients from the shooting and had been advised that three more were en route. "Please continue to pray," the hospital said. The shooting is the latest incident of gun violence in the United States, raising demands for more gun control and more effective treatment of the mentally ill. Recent episodes of gun violence include the massacre of nine people at a South Carolina church last spring and the killing of five US servicemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 2012, seven students at the small Christian college Oikos University in Oakland, California, were shot dead by a former student, marking the deadliest outburst of violence at US college since April 2007, when a student at Virginia Tech University killed 32 people and wounded 25 others before taking his own life.

Loading With Reuters Clarifications: Earlier reports from the US were that the gunman was aged 20 and had killed 13 people and injured 20.