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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Miranda Bryant Nordic correspondent

The ‘big church move’: Swedish town begins to roll historic building 5km

People gathered outside the church, a Sami-style wooden Swedish Lutheran building
The church, inaugurated in 1912, is known for its architecture that resembles a lávvu (a Sámi hut). Photograph: Malin Haarala/AP

After eight years of planning, a cost of more than 500m kronor (£39m) and an early morning blessing, a church in northern Sweden began a slow-motion 5km journey on Tuesday to make way for the expansion of Europe’s biggest underground mine.

The 672-tonne Kiruna Kyrka, a Swedish Lutheran church inaugurated in 1912, is to be slowly rolled to its new home over two days, at a pace of half-a-kilometre an hour.

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