No New Zealander will be untouched by the unfolding mining drama on the West Coast.
There is, as was alluded to in an interview yesterday morning between Greymouth Mayor Tony Kokshoorn and TVNZ's Paul Holmes, a little bit of West Coaster in all of us.
As the local community, and indeed the nation, watches and waits, the burden of anguish is felt and shared.
Very few in the Coast's famously tight-knit community will not know someone directly involved or affected by the incident, which late on Friday afternoon left 29 workers trapped in the Pike River mine.
It is a time of great trauma for these redoubtable people and while uncertainty over the fate of their loved ones remains, thoughts and prayers are being offered from all corners of the country, not least Otago.
Kind words have come from overseas too - the missing include two Australians, two Britons and one South African - as well as offers of assistance.
In this technologically advanced age, an era when industrial safety is scrutinised by both statute and public expectation, it is easy to forget that by its very nature mining is an extremely dangerous occupation.
Of that we are regularly reminded as reports emerge from countries throughout the world of yet another mining accident.
That reality has certainly been underscored at home during the past three days in the most agonising of ways as the country holds its breath and hopes for a successful outcome to the poised rescue operation.
The longer the delay in being able to mount such an operation, the greater the gathering gloom around its prospects.
The factors that have prevented the rescuers from entering the mine - evidence of an unstable, gaseous atmosphere, hints of a heat source indicative of combustion and uncertainty over the stability of sectors of the mine itself following Friday's explosion - can also be expected to be impacting on the underground environment in which the miners, presuming they survived the initial blast, find themselves.
Comparisons have inevitably been made with the Chilean mine rescue that so recently gripped the world, but the circumstances are entirely different.
The Pike River Coal mine, commissioned only in 2009, is said to be one of the most technologically advanced in the country, built to exacting safety and environmental standards.
It is New Zealand's largest premium quality hard-coking coal deposit.
But it shares in common with most underground coal mining operations a potential susceptibilty to explosions, one not shared to anything like the same extent by the Chilean copper mining operation.
The continuing detectable presence of combustible gases, such as methane, at the Pike River mine remains a sobering reminder of unpredictability and potential pitfalls of mining coal underground.
The danger of rockfalls and tunnel collapses is ever present, as is the threat posed by exposure to other poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide.
New Zealand's significant list of mining disasters is testament to this.
Among them, some dating back more than a century, are those at Kaitangata in 1879 in which 34 men and boys died; the Brunner mine in 1896 (65 killed); Huntly 1914 (43 dead); and the Dobson and Huntly tragedies of 1926 and 1939 which accounted for nine and 11 miners respectively.
In the modern era, the Strongman mine disaster of 1969 killed 19 miners.
It is still too early to speculate on the causes and indeed final effects of this incident.
That can wait until there is some resolution to this increasingly ominous event.
It is not too late to hope against hope that the men trapped inside have found themselves in pockets of clean air, nor that the rescue team will be able to enter the mine sooner than later and bring the miners out.
While that hope remains, all efforts, including thoughts and prayers, must be centred on such an outcome.
