Huge church picked up and moved 3 MILES away to stop it being swallowed whole

One of Sweden's most famous wooden churches has been picked up, fully intact, and moved to a new site to prevent it from being swallowed by the world's largest underground iron-ore mine. The Kiruna Church, Kiruna Kyrka in Swedish, and its bell tower have been moved this week along a three-mile route to a new city centre.

This iconic building becomes the latest to be moved from the current location of Kiruna, Sweden's northernmost city, 124 miles inside the Arctic Circle, which is home to around 23,000 people. Located in the Lapland province, the settlement was originally built in the 1890s to serve the Kiruna Mine, which has an impressive ore body that is 2.5 miles long, 260 to 390 feet thick and reaching a depth of 1.2 miles. Incredibly, since mining began at the site at the end of the 19th century, the mine has produced over 950 million tonnes of ore. However, after residents began to see cracks in buildings and roads as the mine expanded deeper, it was decided in 2004 that the current centre of Kiruna would need to be relocated, before the entire settlement was swallowed up. This move would be made gradually over several decades.

This week, thousands of visitors descended on Kiruna to watch and take part in the moving of the town's church, Sky News reports. The church's vicar, Lena Tjarnberg, kicked off the move with a blessing on Tuesday (August 19) morning. The move was expected to take until Wednesday afternoon.

The church was built between 1909 and 1912, with its exterior built in a Gothic Revival style. In 2001, it was voted the most popular pre-1950 building in Sweden in a nationwide poll by the Swedish Travelling Exhibitions. It is considered to be "the Shrine of the Nomadic people", as it was significantly influenced by Sami huts and Norwegian stave churches.

The 40x40x27 metre, 672.4 ton church's move, a three-mile eastward route, was meticulously planned by LKAB, the state-owned mining company, and even included an appearance from Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf. Stefan Holmblad Johansson, LKAB's project manager for the move, did not disclose how much the move had cost the mining company.

It was moved by two 28-axle self-propelled modular transporters (SPMTs), each with a 48-ton capacity.

Built earlier than the church, the bell tower, or belfry, was constructed from 1906 to 1907. It was about 66 feet west of the church building and reflects influences from other bell towers in northern Sweden. The materials and colour of the tower are the same as those of the main building.

As of July, a total of 25 buildings had been lifted onto beams and wheeled to the new site. Following the church's move, 15 buildings remain.