Syrian war triggers first withdrawal from global ‘doomsday’ seed vault

         The Svalbard Global Seed Vault    (C)MariTefre/SvalbardGlobale

The civil war in Syria has prompted the first withdrawal of seeds from a "doomsday" vault built in an Arctic mountainside to safeguard global food supplies. The seeds, including samples of wheat, barley and grasses suited to dry regions, have been requested by researchers elsewhere in the Middle East to replace seeds in a gene bank near the Syrian city of Aleppo that has been damaged by the war.

How seeds are stored inside the vault

The doomsday seed vault on Norway's remote Svalbard archipelago houses the world's back up supply of seeds to ensure crop diversity. It contains deposits of nearly 865,000 varieties of seeds buried within a mountain in case of catastrophe. The vault, which opened on the Svalbard archipelago in 2008, is designed to protect crop seeds, such as beans, rice and wheat, against the worst cataclysms of nuclear war or disease. The seed samples are from almost all nations and even if the power were to fail, the vault would stay frozen and sealed for at least 200 years.
This would be its first withdrawal since its existence.