‘Doomsday vault’ to be inaugurated

AIMED at providing mankind with a Noah’s Ark of food in the event of a global catastrophe, an Arctic “doomsday vault” filled with samples of the world’s most important seeds will be inaugurated in Norway today.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Nobel Peace Prize winning environmentalist Wangari Matai will be among those present at the inauguration of the vault, which has been carved into the permafrost of a remote Arctic mountain 1,000km from the North Pole.

The vault, made up of three spacious cold chambers each measuring 27 metres x 10m, create a long trident-shaped tunnel bored into the sandstone and limestone.