Recent reports of doomsday flooding at the doomsday seed vault in Norway - have been greatly exaggerated.

Well, sort of.

A barrage of breathless headlines last week declared that water had flooded into the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a facility designed to safeguard global crop diversity.

The leak happened in October 2016, when extreme rainfall and high temperatures caused permafrost to melt and leak about 50 feet into the vault's entry tunnel.

The water then re-froze.

But as officials at the facility told Popular Science, the seed bank itself was never under threat, and there was simply "no flooding, but more water than we like."

The entry tunnel has been leaky in previous years, and groups operating the facility are working on better waterproofing.

The inner facility itself has additional safeguards to keep water from threatening the seeds, including pumps and a downward slope in the entryway.

Read More:

• Don't Panic, Humanity's ‘Doomsday' Seed Vault Is Probably Still Safe (Washington Post)
• Turns Out The Svalbard Seed Vault Is Probably Fine (Popular Science)