The Svalbard Global Seed Vault located in Norway has suffered mild flooding caused by melting permafrost. The vault holds nearly a million packets of food crop seeds from every country in the world.
The Global Seed Vault has been built in an abandoned coal mine, deep inside a mountain. The vault is located in the Arctic Circle and has a thick layer of permafrost above it, which was earlier identified as a failsafe against natural or man-made disasters, thus ensuring the survival of several plant species. However, rising temperatures in the global environment and a warmer winter have caused the permafrost to melt.
The melting permafrost seeped into the seed bank but froze before entering the vault, as the seeds are stored at a constant -17 degrees Celsius. The new development has led to researchers at the facility re-evaluating the necessary steps to prevent global warming from harming the largest collection of seeds in the world.