![]() However, Crop Trust on Saturday twice retweeted a Popular Science article that seemed to indicate the situation was not as dire as had been initially reported. Representatives for Statsbygg and Crop Trust did not immediately respond to an emailed interview request Saturday. So which is it? Is the fact that some water seeped into a “fail-safe” vault no big deal? Or are we as a human race doomed to die, starving and cropless, in the event of global catastrophe? “The seeds are safe and sound,” tweeted the Crop Trust, an international non-profit group that helped establish the Svalbard vault in 2008. Finally, to be “better safe than sorry,” Statsbygg says researchers will closely follow the development of permafrost on Svalbard. In addition, waterproof walls would be erected inside the tunnel. “The seeds in the seed vault have never been threatened and will remain safe during implementation of the measures,” the statement read.Īccording to the statement, the proposed improvements include removing heat sources, such as a transformer station, from the tunnel, as well as constructing drainage ditches on the mountainside to prevent meltwater from accumulating around the entrance. Yes, there had been “season-dependent intrusion of water” into the outer part of the seed vault, but the group was now taking precautionary measures to make improvements to the outer tunnel to prevent future occurrences. On Saturday, Statsbygg seemed to walk back some of those comments in a statement published on the seed vault’s website. ![]() “The question is whether this is just happening now, or will it escalate?” Aschim asked. She added that officials were now observing the seed vault around the clock to “minimize all the risks and make sure the seed bank can take care of itself.” “A lot of water went into the start of the tunnel and then it froze to ice, so it was like a glacier when you went in,” Statsbygg spokeswoman Hege Njaa Aschim told the Guardian of the water breach. But a spokeswoman for Statsbygg - a group that advises the Norwegian government, which owns the vault - cautioned that it might only be a matter of time before they were. Though water did get past the vault’s threshold, none of the seeds had been damaged. Read more: Seed bank in Arctic may be humanity’s ultimate backup plan “Arctic stronghold of world’s seeds flooded after permafrost melts,” the newspaper announced. The alleged failure of the vault, buried deep into an Arctic mountainside, had occurred after warmer than usual temperatures had caused a layer of permafrost to melt, “sending meltwater gushing into the entrance tunnel” and presumably putting the world’s most diverse collection of crop seeds at risk, according to the Guardian. Water had apparently breached this “fail-safe” trove of the planet’s seeds that is supposed to protect earth’s food supply in the event of a “doomsday” scenario. ![]() On Friday, a slew of alarming headlines emerged regarding the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
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