Malmberget
| Malmberget | |
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Malmberget. "The Pit" is visible in the centre-left of the image. In the background Gällivare and the Dundret mountain.
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 Malmberget
Malmberget
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| Coordinates: 67°10′N 20°40′E / 67.167°N 20.667°ECoordinates: 67°10′N 20°40′E / 67.167°N 20.667°E | |
| Country | Sweden |
| Province | Lapland |
| County | Norrbotten County |
| Municipality | Gällivare Municipality |
| Area | |
| • Total | 7.39 km2 (2.85 sq mi) |
| Population (31 December 2010) | |
| • Total | 5,590 |
| • Density | 757/km2 (1,960/sq mi) |
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) |
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) |
Malmberget ("The Ore Mountain") is a locality and mining town situated in Gällivare Municipality, Norrbotten County, Sweden with 5,590 inhabitants in 2010. It is situated 5 kilometres from the municipal seat Gällivare.
Malmberget is known as a major site for the extraction of iron ore from deep mines by the company LKAB. The iron ore mining started in 1741 at the Illuvaara mountain, later known as Gellivare malmberg and eventually just Malmberget. The first train transporting iron ore was loaded in 1888 - this was the beginning of the great iron ore rush which would change the entire area of Northern Lapland. In Malmberget there were lots of job opportunities but no dwellings - a striking resemblance to the conditions during some of the gold rushes in North America. During the first years, workers lived in shacks built from wasted dynamite crates.
Right down the centre of Malmberget, the deep mine has reached daylight and thus created a huge hole called Kaptensgropen ("The Captain's Pit"). In March 2012, Gropen was joined with a new pit resulting from the 'Fabian'-deposit caving in as planned, and has grown southwards as the deep mining continues, and thus divided the town while making the old town centre uninhabitable and forcing many institutions (e.g. the two existing cinemas and the church) to move to the western part of Malmberget or, even more commonly, to the neighbouring town of Gällivare.
Today Gropen is being filled up with stone which is dug up as a by-product from the underground mines. Gropen will eventually be filled in, but the uninhabitable area is continually growing as underground mining undermines the area and seismic events caused by the mining regularly shake the remaining parts of Malmberget. The future of Malmberget is currently uncertain, but prospecting by LKAB indicates that even more of Malmberget may have to move in the future. The moving of several large residential houses owned by the mining company, as well as private villas, has been a major issue locally for the past few years. The iron ore extracted from Malmberget is mainly transported by rail southeast to the port of Luleå. (See Swedish iron ore during World War II).
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Wikipedia