CARNAGE ON THE STRIP
At least 50 dead, 200 hurt Aussie woman linked to killer
MASS DEATHS ROCK US
AN Australian woman was last night linked to the worst mass shooting in American history. Former Gold Coast woman Marilou Danley was located in Las Vegas after her identification was reportedly ffound in the room of sshooter Stephen Padddock, 64, the gunman re- sponsible for the Mandalay Bay massacre.
At least 50 people were killed and more than 200 injured by Paddock, who shot into a crowd of thousands from his hotel room above an outdoor country-music festival.
The Nevada local was shot dead by police in a room of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino at least half an hour after the massacre started about 10pm local time.
Chilling video footage showed the crowd at the
People were standing around, then they hit the floor Witness IVETTA SALDANA
closing act of the three-day Route 91 Harvest countrymusic festival in an outside concert venue fleeing hundreds of rounds of automatic gunfire coming from a hotel room above them.
“It was a horror show,” said Ivetta Saldana, who was at the Jason Aldean concert with a friend.
“People were standing around, then they hit the floor.”
One police officer was in a critical condition and two others were feared dead, according to Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardi.
One reveller told reporters a woman had come running through the crowd 45 minutes before the first shots were fired screaming “you’re all going to die tonight”.
The gunman fired from a room on the 32nd floor of the 43-storey Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, across Las Vegas Boulevard from the allages outdoor concert.
Witness Meghan Kearney said she saw “hundreds of bodies” as she fled shots that “sounded like they were coming from the sky”.
“All of a sudden we heard what sounded like a machine gun and people just started to scream that they were hit and to get down,” Ms Kearney said.
“About 20 seconds after that, you would hear a round of machinegun fire and people just dropping and hundreds of bodies all over the ground.”
Ms Kearney described the sickening sound of rounds of machinegun fire followed by a break as the shooter reloaded.
“In the moment, it felt like forever, but probably you would hear that around 30 times, of what just sounded like a machinegun, one after another, after another,” she said.
“We finally kind of heard a break and got up and just started running, hoping they were not going to hit us.”
An off-duty firefighter at the concert said he “personally pronounced 20 dead”.
“With 30,000 in the arena ... it was like shooting goldfish in a bowl,” he said. “It’s a sad day for Las Vegas.”
A triage centre was set up at Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue as dozens were taken by ambulance to the nearby University Medical Centre for treatment. A spokeswoman confirmed at least two deaths, with dozens of critically injured patients.
Planes were diverted from the nearby McCarran International Airport because of concern they would be hit by gunfire, and police closed off 1.5km of Las Vegas Boulevard.
Witnesses said there were many casualties on the grounds of the Mandalay Bay, a four-star, 3309-room hotel at the southern end of the strip.
Las Vegas is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the US.
With the death toll expected to climb, the massacre has superseded the previous record held by the Pulse nightclub terror attack in Orlando, which killed 49.