Twenty-eight miners were hospitalised, many of them with severe burns, after a methane explosion at a coal mine in southern Poland, where one worker remained missing Tuesday, the mine's operator KHW said.

The accident in the Myslowice-Wesola mine occurred 665 metres (2,180 feet) underground late Monday.

All but one of the 37 miners underground at the time managed to escape.

Eighteen miners were seriously injured, according to Mariusz Nowak, the head of a hospital in the nearby city of Siemianowice Slaskie that took in the most severe cases.

Seven miners remained in a critical condition with burns covering up to 80 percent of their bodies, he told reporters.

Three people died and another was injured at the same mine in August 2013 when an electric cable they were installing in an elevator fell on them.