Dutch company moves 113-year-old, 670 ton Swedish church to new location
The Dutch company Mammoet is handling a peculiar project in Kiruna in northern Sweden. It is in the process of moving a 113-year-old wooden church building, which weighs over 670 tons, to a new location 5 kilometers away. The progress is broadcast live on Swedish TV and can be followed on various livestreams.
The 113-year-old church must be relocated because the ground underneath it has become unstable after over a century of iron ore mining in the area, NOS reported. Subsidence caused by mining is now threatening the old town center. In recent years, some homes have been demolished, and several historic buildings have been relocated to a new town center a few kilometers away.
The church’s relocation started on Tuesday and is expected to be completed by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday. The 35 by 40 meter wooden building is crawling along at a top speed of 500 meters per hour, stopping now and again to check on parts that couldn’t be removed from the building.
The project has been years in the making. Following around eight years of planning, physical preparations started in the past year, including digging under the church to install enormous moving platforms, widening the road, removing lamposts and trees, and demolishing an overpass to clear the church’s way. Mammoet was brought in because it specialises in moving large, heavy objects.
“It looks very spectacular,” Wesley Overklift, a Dutchman living in Sweden who is following the relocation for the mining company LKAB, told the broadcaster. Many locals have a close bond with the iron mine. “Kiruna was founded as a mining town,” he said. “They’re sad to see the church go, but they know it has to be done. And they’re also happy that it’s getting a new home.”
Seeing the empty site where the church stood for over a century will take some getting used to for locals, Overklift expects. “Even for me, it’s strange. But on the other hand, this has been going on for decades; many buildings have already been demolished or moved, and now there are empty lawns.”
