The death toll in the flooded Wangjialing Coal Mine in north China's Shanxi Province rose to 12 Thursday, as the rescue work for the remaining 26 trapped miners was suspended due to flooding risks, the rescue headquarters said. Five bodies were discovered early Thursday, but no other details were available. Liu Dezheng, spokesman of the headquarters, said hundreds of rescuers were forced to retreat to relatively safe places in the pit, when a ceiling of a shaft began to leak water Thursday morning. Water levels of the two areas where the miners were thought to be trapped remained quite high, making it hard to carry out a large- scale rescue operation, he said. 'Pumps are not effective as the submerged area is like a huge swamp. Oxygen in the mine is also low, although the gas level is safe,' he said. He said rescuers believed they were about 100 meters from the platforms. Marsh pumps had been introduced to accelerate the pumping work, and experts were doing a field investigation. A total of 153 miners were working below ground when the mine flooded on March 28. A total of 115 miners were brought out of the mine alive Monday after being trapped for more than a week. 