A gas blast at a university canteen in Algeria killed eight people, the directorate of Civil Defence said on Saturday. The state-run APS news agency said that students were eating dinner on Friday when the blast took place. It added that one of those killed was a woman, 57, an employee at the canteen of the university located in Tlemcen, 540 kilometres west of Algiers. Around 40 people were injured in the blast. Civil Defence units have mobilized 90 officers and four doctors to give first aid to the injured before evacuating them to the hospital in Tlemcen, dpa reported.