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Swedish City In Danger Of Getting Swallowed Up By The Ground: Residents Relocated To Safer Place

By George Houston | Update Date: May 20, 2016 06:56 AM EDT

A city in Sweden named Kiruna is on the brink of being swallowed up by the ground and is expected to have its residents relocated to a safer area.

According to Science Alert, Kiruna is a postcard perfect community which has an estimated population of 18,000 and also happens to be the major provider of iron in the European Union. The flourishing economics in the city has made the national government decide to put somewhere else the population two mines away from the mining area to the east.

The city's beloved iron deposits are located almost directly in the center of the area and years of substantial mining have work loosed the foundations which have misshapen the ground in the area. To continue with its economic resource, miners need to extract the previous minerals deeper into the Earth which could lay bare the total collapse of the community aboveground.

Professionals have estimated that a full collapse of the city will happen by the year 2050 thus everything has been set and will be into total completion by the year 2040.

The mine is operated by the state-owned company Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB is shouldering all the financial expenditure for the transfer including those living under rented accomodations. Most of the buildings in the area will be demolished and then rebuilt except for a few selected landmarks which will be transferred brick by brick, or even lifted wholesale using heavy machinery.

Åsa Bjerndell, an architect working on the project pointed it out entwined reasons for this major transfer.

"The systems of social and economic ties are what binds Kiruna, and if there is anything to be moved, it is these connections and relationships. If we are going to talk about successfully moving a city, we have to make sure that the move strengthens existing relations and helps create new ones in the process."

Residents, as reported, will be deeply involved in the design of their new city.  

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