KIRUNA, Sweden: A landmark Swedish church arrived Wednesday at its new home after a two-day move across the Arctic town of Kiruna, in a move to allow Europe’s largest underground mine to expand.
The red wooden Kiruna Kyrka, which dates from 1912 and weighs 672 tonnes, completed its five-kilometre journey around 2:30 pm (local time).
A musical fanfare celebrated its arrival after a meticulously choreographed relocation that began on Tuesday on two remote-controlled flatbed trailers inching forward at a pace of half a kilometre an hour.
Kiruna’s entire town centre is being relocated because of the giant LKAB iron ore mine, whose ever deeper burrowing over the years has weakened the ground.
A stone’s throw from where the structure was inching into place next to the town’s cemetery, Lutheran vicar Lena Tjarnberg held a church service for dignitaries in a tent resembling a ‘laavu’, the traditional tent of the region’s Indigenous Sami people.
The journey went smoothly for the 1,200-tonne convoy, despite some tricky narrow passages and 90 degree turns, officials said.
The relocation has generated widespread interest, with large crowds thronging the streets of the town of 18,000 people.
Lisa Weber, a 26-year-old real estate agent, had travelled from her home in Germany to Kiruna to be able to witness what she called a “historical” event.
“It’s something that you do once in your life, or see once in your life, and it’s such a long distance from the old place to the new place,” Weber told AFP, adding it was “very interesting” to see the elaborate process.
LKAB said the new location had been “chosen with great care to preserve its character and connection to the surroundings”.
“The building has been rotated 180 degrees, meaning that the altar now faces west – a symbolic choice that opens the church towards the city and its residents,” the state-owned company said in a statement.
LKAB added it was attempting to create a “cohesive whole” with other cultural buildings set to be moved. – AFP
