By Alexandre Robillard, The Canadian Press

LEBEL-SUR-QUEVILLON, Que. - A grieving relative says three dead miners drowned in such frigid water that their bodies were frozen blocks of ice by the time they were recovered.

The three men were trapped when the northern Quebec mine was flooded Friday and, after a frenzied rescue effort, their bodies were found three days later.

Rescue workers had frantically pumped water from hundreds of metres below the ground in the hope of finding the men alive.

But Pietro Bollini said Tuesday that there's no way the three men - including his brother, Domenico - could have survived for very long.

He said rescue workers did their best but that the water was so cold the men must have died within minutes.

"Submerged in water like that? Forget it. They're blocks of ice now," Bollini said in an interview in Lebel-sur-Quevillon, a town near the mine.

"When they took them out yesterday, they were frozen from head to toe. . . Fifteen minutes in there, and you're dead."

Marc Guay, Bruno Goulet, and Bollini were doing repair work in the mine for Metanor Resources when it flooded. Two of them worked for Metanor while Guay was an employee of mining contractor Montali.

Metanor issued a statement Tuesday expressing its deep sadness over the tragedy and promised its full support to grieving families and authorities now conducting an investigation.

"The circumstances of the accident are presently unknown," Metanor said in its press release. "The company is working closely with the authorities."

The province's workers' safety commission and provincial police are both investigating.

Police are trying to determine whether criminal negligence may have played a role in the tragedy.

The victims were making repairs in the mine when the accident occurred. The mine is not currently operating, and the men travelled down an elevator shaft to a level that would not normally have been flooded.

When workers above ground lost contact with the men, they brought the elevator lift back to the surface. It was empty.

But because its overhead hatch was open, they were hopeful the men might have escaped and swum to an air pocket.

In their rescue effort, crews pumped water from 500 metres below the Earth's surface. Before discovering the bodies all they found was equipment - like helmets and a lantern.

Bollini's father, Italo, travelled to the scene of the accident with his son, Pietro. But he said he still doesn't know what caused the accident that killed his other son, Domenico. He said he was waiting to hear the conclusions from the safety commission.

The incident appeared to rattle investors in Metanor, who initially sent the junior gold miner's stock plunging 21.6 per cent in the first day of trading after the accident - but much of those losses were recovered in trading Tuesday.