Seventy Canadian miners trapped for 20 hours in a potash mine in Saskatchewan could be brought to the surface within hours as firefighters extinguished the blaze that had pinned them in refuge rooms, a senior mine official said yesterday. ?The fire is out, it?s obviously good news,? Marshall Hamilton, a spokesman for Mosaic, said in a telephone briefing from the site. ?They?re all safe, they?re all secure, they?re all accounted for and we?ll be escorting them out of the mine sometime tonight.?

The fire broke out at 3 a.m. Central Standard Time (2100 GMT) early on Sunday at the mine in Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, but the miners rushed to safety in the refuge rooms. Hamilton said a rescue team had reached the refuge rooms and reported to officials on the surface that the blaze had been extinguished. Rescuers can now begin the process of ventilating the mine to allow the miners to leave up to six of the safe rooms they had taken refuge in.

The size of the mine ? about 18.6 miles (30 km) by 12 miles (20 km) ? could add to the delay of clearing the smoke. Hamilton said the miners were trained to seek safety in the refuge stations, which are specifically built and designed for such incidents. ?In those refuge stations, the workers can seal themselves in and be safe with enough oxygen, food and water to be comfortable for 36 hours at the least,? he said, adding that the families of the trapped miners had been contacted. Miners at the site reported smoke almost a little more than a half mile (1 km) underground early Sunday morning. The mine scare raised memories of a fatal explosion in a West Virginia coal mine earlier this month. Twelve miners were killed and one injured in the blast.

                                                                                                                                    <b>Amran ABOCAR</b>