The massacre that killed 147 people and wounded scores of others at a Kenyan university lasted for hours Thursday before the terror was over. "It is a very sad day for Kenya," Interior Ministry Joseph Nkaissery said of the carnage at Garissa University College.

The death toll is the highest in a terror attack on Kenyan soil since the U.S. Embassy was bombed in 1998. More than 200 people died in the Nairobi blast. A total of 147 people were killed Thursday, according to the official Twitter account of Kenya's National Disaster Operation Centre and Kenyan media reports. The agency also said 79 people were injured and 587 people were evacuated.

Four gunmen were killed, officials said. The Somalia-based Al-Shabaab militant group claimed responsibility for the assault.