The northernmost city in Sweden, Kiruna, was back in the news this week with reports that it would be moving — yes, moving — about two miles east. And, for once, an unusual story from the Arctic Circle had nothing to do with climate change.

Why would a town need to move?

Kiruna’s plan to move has been in the works for a few years now. The city, comfortably within the borders of the Arctic Circle and home to a little more than 18,000 people, is built on a hill above a vast iron ore mine. Founded in 1900 and midwifed by a state-owned mining company, Kiruna has been an industry town for over a century.

Now that industry is simultaneously endangering the city and paying for its relocation. As the mine on Kiruna’s western border has expanded deeper into the ground, ore is being removed from beneath the city’s foundations — literally undermining the ground it sits on.