A devastating fire at a restaurant in Huancané, a town in Peru’s Andean Puno region near the Bolivian border, killed ten university students and injured three others. The victims, aged between 17 and 23, were attending a birthday celebration when the blaze broke out on Thursday afternoon, according to police reports released Friday. Authorities said the students were trapped on the second floor of the Kalma Tripa restaurant, a structure made of wood and brick. Local residents attempted to extinguish the flames using fire extinguishers and water before firefighters arrived from Juliaca, nearly an hour later. Huancané’s mayor, Valerio Tapia, told state news agency Andina that the town of 20,000 residents has no fire service of its own. Preliminary investigations suggest a gas cylinder explosion may have triggered the fire. Experts note that such incidents are frequent in Peru’s remote regions, where safety regulations on fuel storage are often poorly enforced. The tragedy has renewed calls for improved fire safety infrastructure in rural Andean towns.