Have you ever just wanted to pick up and leave the foundation you call home? Kiruna knows the feeling.
Kiruna, a town in northern Sweden, built its riches upon the vast seam of iron ore, but the massive mine is now sinking the city of 23,000 residents. Now faced with a crisis, the town of Kiruna is moving to avoid catastrophe.
Northern Sweden is not the most welcoming place to build a city. With long, brutal winters and short, mild summers, Kiruna’s climate doesn’t exactly scream city material, but the iron resources that lie underneath it scream Mecca.
Have you ever just wanted to pick up and leave the foundation you call home? Kiruna knows the feeling.
Kiruna, a town in northern Sweden, built its riches upon the vast seam of iron ore, but the massive mine is now sinking the city of 23,000 residents. Now faced with a crisis, the town of Kiruna is moving to avoid catastrophe.
Northern Sweden is not the most welcoming place to build a city. With long, brutal winters and short, mild summers, Kiruna’s climate doesn’t exactly scream city material, but the iron resources that lie underneath it scream Mecca.
The Sweden-owned Luossavarra-Kiirrunavaara AB mining company (LKAB) founded Kiruna in 1900 and quickly turned it into the largest iron ore extraction site in the world, producing 90 percent of all the iron in Europe. The company’s iron supply on the outskirts of the town was diminishing, so in 2004, LKAB thought it best to dig its shafts toward the city’s heart, leaving the buildings vulnerable.
Kiruna iron ore processing plant image via Shutterstock.
Read more at ENN Affiliate, TriplePundit.
