Contact was lost with ten people Saturday after an accident in a coal mine in southern Poland, the company that owns the mine announced, is the second of its kind within days.

GSV said in a statement that "rescue personnel were unable to contact 10 people" at the Zofiovka mine.

She explained that an earthquake hit the mine at 03:40 am (0140 GMT), which led to the leakage of methane gas

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the news of the accident was "appalling".

Forty-two of the 52 miners who were underground at the time of the quake were able to come out to the surface, according to the company.

Twelve rescue teams are trying to reach the place where the missing workers are believed to be 2,300 to 2,500 meters away, the company said.

In 2018, five miners died in an earthquake that struck the mine itself.

GSV is also the owner of a mine in Benivić, 230 km to the south, where Wednesday's accident killed five people and left seven others missing.

The first explosion occurred shortly after midnight on Wednesday, at a depth of 1,000 meters.

A second tremor occurred while rescue personnel were treating the injured from the first tremor.

The search for the missing was suspended on Friday due to the dangerous conditions for the rescue teams, the company announced.

The company's president, Tomas Kadney, told reporters Friday that the analysis of the situation "forced us to abandon the rescue operation related to the evacuation of seven miners" who are still stuck, after an explosion in the mine injured 10 people while rescuers were trying to install a new ventilation pipe.

"It is a very difficult decision," he added.

He believed that "sending rescue personnel to a very dangerous area would be irresponsible."

Poland still relies on coal for about 70 percent of its energy. And witnessed in the past a number of mine accidents.

In addition to the accident in 2018 in Zwivka, two men were killed and two others were injured last year when an underground wall collapsed in the Myslovic-Visula mine (south).