Overview

• The 113-year-old, 600-ton wooden church was lifted onto a custom trailer and will move 5 km over two days starting Tuesday to escape ground subsidence from iron ore extraction.
• The relocation is part of LKAB’s 30-year plan that will eventually shift about 3,000 homes and 6,000 residents from areas threatened by mine expansion.
• LKAB completed road widening over the past year to accommodate the church’s transport and is building a new city centre five kilometres from the original site.
• Gabna Sami leaders warn that further mining, including the EU-designated Per Geijer rare earth project, could sever traditional reindeer migration paths.
• State-owned LKAB has extracted around 2 billion tonnes of ore since the 1890s and estimates another 6 billion tonnes in the Kiruna region to bolster Europe’s iron and rare earth supplies.