Wanda Groves, the mother of trapped miner Jerry Groves, was walking beside Manchin when she stumbled. As the governor helped the struggling woman regain her footing, Darlene Groves, the woman's daughter-in-law, touched the sleeve of the governor's leather jacket and asked him: "Are all 12 men alive?"

Darlene Groves said the governor turned to her and said quietly, "Yes."

Manchin would say later he got "caught up in the euphoria." But what was supposed to have been a personal exchange was overheard, and a private word of encouragement suddenly took the shape of official confirmation from the highest level of state government.

Shortly after midnight, Manchin repeated in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that 12 men had been found alive. "It is a miracle; there's no other explanation," he said.

Hatfield, the mining company chief executive, told reporters that mine officials held off announcing the men were dead while trying to confirm it.

"In the process of being cautious, we allowed the jubilation to go on longer than it should have," he said, his voice crackling with emotion.

Hatfield said the initial mistake resulted from a miscommunication among the rescue crews. Another ICG executive, vice president Gene Kitts, suggested that the misunderstanding resulted because the rescuers who reached the victims in the mine were wearing full-face oxygen masks and used radios to report their findings to their base.

Kitts said Wednesday the rescuers agreed not to use the words "survivor" or "victim" while communicating during their search. Instead they were instructed to use the word "item" when locating one of the trapped miners.

"That system worked when the first miner was found," he said.

But the code failed when the other miners were discovered, Kitts said, because people on the surface were told "12 are alive."

"In the jubilation of the moment the rules didn't hold," Hatfield said.

The mine's sole survivor, 26-year-old Randal McCloy Jr., lay in critical condition, suffering from dehydration, a collapsed lung, and heart, liver and kidney problems.

McCloy, the youngest miner in the group, showed no sign of carbon monoxide poisoning but may have suffered a brain injury because of lack of oxygen after being trapped in the mine for more than 42 hours, a doctor said.

One of the dead was discovered several hundred feet from where the others had barricaded themselves in the mazelike mine, officials said. Hatfield said the miner was apparently killed by the force of the blast.

The other men were apparently deeper into the mine at the time and survived the blast. But the mine company would not say exactly how they died or how long they survived, citing family privacy.