Kiruna, the town that moves
On September 2, Sweden approved LKAB's purchase of 275 hectares of state land so the mining town of Kiruna can keep moving out of the way of its own mine.
Kiruna is Sweden's northernmost city, laid out in 1900 around Kiirunavaara, an ore body four kilometres long. The ore is why the town exists, and why it is cracking: as LKAB digs deeper, the rock above it deforms. Since 2004 the city has been moving itself about three kilometres east.
The new centre opened in 2022. In August 2025 the church went. Kiruna kyrka, 672 tonnes of timber raised between 1909 and 1912, rolled five kilometres east over two days at half a kilometre an hour, on two 28-axle trailers. LKAB says the unsafe zone is larger than expected: about 12,000 people and 6,000 homes affected. Sami herders are asking what the mine's next footprint costs their pastures. Nobody pretends the old town can stay.
From above, it looks like an evacuation in slow motion that everyone has agreed to.
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