The Swedish film The Abyss has been sitting near the top of the viewing charts since its premiere. Viewers praise the acting, the thrilling action sequences, and the engaging storyline, but many were left wondering if a town could actually start to collapse due to overmining, as Kiruna, Sweden does in the movie.
It turns out that yes, terrifyingly enough, it can! In fact, the screenwriters were inspired by true events when writing this disaster film, which hit Netflix in February of 2024.
Director Richard Holm co-wrote the script with his son, Robin Sherlock Holm, and Nicola Sinclair. Holm got the idea to write The Abyss, the story of a mine security officer named Frigga (Tuva Novotny) forced to navigate her rapidly-collapsing hometown to find and save her son, after an earthquake struck the far-north (and very real!) town of Kiruna.
For those who aren’t up on their Swedish geography, Kiruna is a town of about 22,900 people located more than 124 miles above the Arctic Circle. The city is home to the Kiirunavaara mine, one of the world’s largest iron ore mining tunnels, which has been a lucrative property for the country for decades. The only problem with Kiruna is that it’s sinking. Slowly, yes, but surely.
State-owned mining company Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB) revealed in 2004 that their planned expansion of the mining tunnels would result in the collapse of the city. They warned that over-mining would cause cracking and collapse throughout Kiruna, making every structure unsound and therefore unfit for habitation. After deliberation, LKAB and the citizens decided to pick up and move the entire town 3 kilometers (about 1.8 miles) to the east.
They’ve been working on that move ever since, literally moving entire buildings on flatbed trailers pulled by trucks, but they had a huge setback in 2020 when real-life disaster struck. An earthquake in the 4.2 – 4.8 range (caused by over-mining, of course) hit Kiruna hard. Thirteen workers were hastily evacuated from the mine and thankfully there were no casualties, but the moving plans were understandably sped up. In 2022, LKAB announced a town-wide party to celebrate the fact that the entire city center was relocated to its new home. The plan is for the rest of the city to move no later than 2033.
The similarities between reality and fiction end here
Holms et al took this inspiration and created a far more exciting story for The Abyss. In his tale it’s not an earthquake that kicks off the action, but a series of smaller seismic events that come as no surprise to Frigga, who knows Kiruna’s days are numbered. What Frigga doesn’t expect is for the city to collapse so quickly, putting her in a dramatic race against time and physics instead of the slow crawl toward destruction Kiruna actually faces.
If you’re looking to fall down a rabbit hole and learn more about Kiruna the sinking city, the 2019 documentary Kiruna: Brand New World is a good place to start, and you can stream it on GuideDoc. Or, if you just want to get a thrill from watching the fictionalized version of events, be sure to check out The Abyss on Netflix.
(featured image: Netflix)
Published: Feb 22, 2024 05:55 pm