Kiruna: How Sweden is moving a city 3km to stop it sinking into the ground

The entirety of Sweden's northen-most city is moving to prevent it from sinking into the ground

More than 10 years ago, the mining city of Kiruna – home to 18,000 people – made a big decision.

Having successfully extracted iron ore from the ground below (some would say too successfully), the rocks underground began to shift, opening up giant fissures that threatened to swallow the city whole.

The only solution, the city decided, was to move itself brick by painstaking brick 3km to the east.

In 2004, determined to save both the mine and the city, state-run Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB), which owns the mine, took on the $2 billion task.

“It was never an option to close the mine,” says Niklas Siren, vice chairman of the executive committee of Kiruna. “The mine has always existed in symbiosis with Kiruna."

Now, in a new video released by the Swedish government, filmmakers Johan Sundberg and Henrik Karkstedt went to Kiruna “to find out why you’d want to move a city, and how it’s done.”

They spoke to resident Johanna, whose family have owned a store in the city since 1933. She doesn’t plan to give it up any time soon.

“They are going to move the city and we will follow along,” she said.

“We are going to move with the store.”

Johanna’s shop, along with the majority of buildings in Kiruna, will be demolished and rebuilt.

LKAB will purchase people’s homes at sale price plus 25 per cent, giving them the means to buy a home in the new city. Alternatively they can skip the transaction, and simply accept a new, free home in the new location.

There are three buildings, however, that will not be demolished – instead they will be carefully dismantled and rebuilt in a new location. This includes Kiruna Church, which was once voted the most beautiful building in Sweden.

This is not an easy process, but architect Mark Szulgit says it’s worth the effort: “The biggest challenge that’s facing us is not the design of a new city which is sustainable, attractive and modern,” he said.

“The biggest challenge is to move the minds of the people and to move the culture. Every decision we take as architects has a future life attached to it for a hundred years forward.”

Johanna seems to agree: “This is the city I was born and raised in,” she said.

“It’s really important to me that the surroundings will be as much the same as they are today, even better.”

You can watch the full video above.