LONGYEARBYEN, Norway -- It's been dubbed a Noah's Ark for plant life and built to withstand an earthquake or a nuclear attack.
Dug deep into the permafrost of a remote Arctic mountain, the "doomsday" vault is designed by Norway to protect the world's seeds from global catastrophe.
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AP Photo/Hakon Mosvold Larsen, Pool
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Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya, left, and Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, right, hold "Box 1", the first of many sealed cases containing seeds to be kept in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Longyearbyen, Norway, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008.
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The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a backup to the world's 1,400 other seed banks, was to be officially inaugurated in a ceremony today on the northern rim of civilization. About 150 guests from 33 countries are expected to attend.
The frozen vault has the capacity to store 4.5 million seed samples from around the globe, shielding them from climate change, war, natural disasters and other threats.
"There are not many countries in the world (that) could have pulled this off," said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, a partner in the project.
Norway's government owns the vault in Svalbard, a frigid archipelago 620 miles from the North Pole. The Nordic country paid $9.1 million for construction, which took less than a year. Other countries can deposit seeds for free and reserve the right to withdraw them upon need.
The operation is financed by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which was founded by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and Biodiversity International, a Rome-based research group.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya, a Crop Diversity Trust board member, and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg planned to attend the opening ceremony 425 feet deep inside Plataaberget mountain.
It was about 5 degrees outside the vault Monday. But it was colder inside. Giant air conditioning units have chilled the vault to just below zero, a temperature at which experts say many seeds could survive for 1,000 years.
Inside the concrete entrance, a roughly 400-foot-long tunnel of steel and concrete, leads to three separate 32-by-88-foot chambers where the seeds will be stored.
The first 600 boxes with 12 tons of seeds already have arrived from 20 seed banks around the world, Norwegian Agriculture Minister Terje Riis-Johansen said. The first 75 boxes were to be carried into the vault by guests as part of the opening ceremony.
The seeds are packed in silvery foil packets. Each chamber can hold 1.5 million packets holding all types of crop seeds.
