Relatives of the 33 trapped Chilean miners have been living in plastic tents at the mine head in a makeshift settlement in the Atacama desert since early August.
View footage from the scene
They have held vigil at 'Camp Hope' near the caved-in San Jose mine for three long weeks.
At first they prayed that their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons would be found alive.
On 22 August their prayers were answered, with the delivery of a note strapped to a drill bit that emerged from the bowels of the Earth carrying a simple red-ink message: 'All 33 of us are well and in the shelter.'
With officials now stressing that a successful rescue could be months away, relatives spend their days writing messages of love and support to their loved ones and awaiting their responses.
'You have no idea how much my soul ached to have been underground and unable to tell you I was alive,' trapped miner Edison Pena said in a letter to his family. 'The hardest thing is not being able to see you.'
Fellow miner Esteban Rojas promised his wife he would finally buy her a wedding dress as soon as he gets out, and hold a church marriage ceremony, 25 years after they wed in a registry office.
'I wrote to him that it's a miracle,' said Carmen Illanes of her message to her husband, Juan. 'And he wrote back to me 'You're right, it is a miracle, and we must show our appreciation by giving thanks and praying to God.'
Psychologists say the letters and communication with family is very important for the miners' mental health, bringing hope and optimism to men struggling to process the trauma of their fate.
Gifts
Gifts are also being sent 700m underground.
A football jersey signed by members of the Chilean national team is destined for Franklin Lobos.
The 55-year-old miner was a professional footballer in his youth, and even made the national team in the 1980s.
The team's coach Marcelo Bielsa, captain Claudio Bravo, and top players Jorge Valdivia and Matias Fernandez all signed the shirt, which Lobos's daughter Carolina said 'will delight my father'.
'He has so much respect for Bielsa and for how he handles the team,' she said.
34-year-old mechanic Edison Pena will receive a photo of US rock and roll legend Elvis Presley from his family.
'Hang in there, because soon you're going to be more famous than Elvis,' they wrote in a note accompanying a photo of the singer.
Lifeline
The cylinder that carries the messages down to the trapped miners has become an umbilical cord, a lifeline for the men.
As it plunges downward through a tunnel too narrow to allow the men to be extracted, it also carries food and medical supplies.
Chile yesterday said it would send anti-depressants down the tiny shaft to the trapped men, as it prepared to tell them it will take three more months to dig them out.
Rescuers are also sending fresh clothes and games down the bore hole the diameter of a grapefruit to help keep the men physically and mentally fit for the grueling wait ahead.
The government has asked NASA and Chile's submarine fleet for tips on survival in extreme, confined conditions, and are looking to send them space mission-like rations.
Health Minister Jaime Manalich said rescue workers had managed to finish a second narrow bore hole, which will be dedicated to channelling drinking water to the miners and keeping communications flowing.
They are also preparing to drill a vertical shaft around 62cm in diameter to evacuate the miners one-by-one via a pulley.
