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

Kiruna Kyrka's slow journey is part of effort to stop town being swallowed by Europe's biggest underground mine

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.