"Disasters and critical minerals1 Today, global mining industry is a 5 trillion USD market . It supplies the manufacturingindustry vital raw materials or minerals required to produce goods demanded by countriesworldwide. Minerals are required by the industry to manufacture a wide range of productsranging from a simple needle to the state-of-the-art robotics and artificial intelligencesystems. Years of research and innovation made possible to look beyond the basket of basicminerals and explore unique properties of the other minerals in the periodic table. Hence,almost all of the modern technologies leverage the unique properties of previously unknownminerals. But, as the demand for the new minerals are rising, difficulty in procuring these minerals arealso paramount. The supply of these minerals depends on the accessibility to mine which isfurther influenced by the political state of the country. CEEW has analysed 49 non-fuelminerals required by the growing domestic manufacturing industry in the year 2030 and therisks associated in procuring their supplies. The study highlighted 12 critical minerals whichwill be contributing to significant value add in the future economy, but, will also have highsupply risks due non-availability of domestic supplies; geopolitical risks of the countries fromwhich these minerals are imported; lack of substitutes and lack of recycling facilities.1 http://www.wmc.org.pl/sites/default/files/WMD2016.pdf However, all the risks mentioned above are directly controlled or influenced by us but,natural disasters are potent enough to inflict long term supply disruptions and we can onlyadapt ourselves towards resilience.Heavy rains and increased erosion can affect the slope stability of over burden leading tolandslides in open cast mines. Very recently, heavy rains forced two of the world’s largest2 copper mine in Chile to temporarily shut down for 3 days incurring a loss of 5000 tonnes ofcopper production. Floods and melting of glacial ice can lead to rising sea levels are alsoextremely potent to disrupt mining operations and can result in loss of lives. In the year 2011,nearly all Australia’s major mining industries faced temporary shut down due to excessive3 floods . BHP one of Australia’s leading mining company faced a 6-month operationdisruption due to the floods. On the contrary, drought denies access to water required formining, processing, and refining activities. In 2015, El Nino induced dry weather forced4 shutdown of Barrick’s gold mining operations in Papua New Guinea . Similarly, rockfractures and geo-technical failures can be fatal recently; a geo-technical failure in Glencore’s5 copper-cobalt mine in Congo claimed 7 lives .We are already in a phase of rapid temperature changes, unpredictable rainfall, rising sealevels which will lead to severe weather conditions inflicting catastrophic effect on countriesglobally. It is eminent that will be a Deja-vu of such mining incidents but with a much largerscale and impact. The vulnerability to such risks depends on the country’s economic capital,lack to infrastructure and ability to tackle disasters. Majority of mining operations done ineconomically backward states or countries hence, they are more vulnerable to disasters fromclimate change.“Centre for Global Development” maps 233 countries globally on a scale of 12 http://www.mining.com/heavy-rains-shut-down-copper-mines-in-chile/3 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f95211a8-2453-11e0-8c0e-00144feab49a.html4 http://www.reuters.com/article/barrick-gold-porgera-elnino-idUSL3N12J287201510195 http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/two-dead-5-missing-after-dr-congo-mining-accident- company-116030801450_1.html to 169 according to decreasing order of vulnerability to climate risks. The results show China,6 India, Republic of Congo, South Africa etc. to be vulnerable to future climate change risk . These countries on the other hand are also major suppliers of “technology minerals”, many ofthem are also required for the “green technology” applications responsible to mitigate climatechange. These countries produce minerals like rare earths, cobalt, lithium, nickel, titanium,platinum etc., they are indirectly consumed in India as they are embedded in importedproducts and concentrates. But, going forward, with the growth of the manufacturing industrya steady supply of these minerals would be required. It is eminent that a disaster in any of these principal mineral producing countries can disruptcrucial supplies of mineral worldwide. Many companies are taking actions to increase theresilience of their operations and facilities to current weather- and climate-related impacts.Kumba Iron Ore has incorporated climate change risks into its risk management programthrough which, they are collecting information on the likelihood and consequence of extreme7 weather impacts . Anglo American have developed business risk templates to incorporateadaptation actions into new and current operations. The results of which will feed into the7 company’s internal climate risk model . However, incidents from natural disasters are notprominent in Indian non-coal mining industry but there are records of incidents of roof fallsand side falls within the metal mining industry. But, with the new mineral exploration policywhich aims to boost the mining sector productivity and exploration for mineable deposits ofpreviously many new minerals, the industry will face new challenges with new depths. AsIndia is forecasted to be vulnerable to be impacts of climate change, there is a need to6 http://www.cgdev.org/page/mapping-impacts-climate-change7 http://www.icmm.com/publications/pdfs/5173.pdf "