On 4 March 2012, a series of blasts occurred at an army arms dump in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo.

[6] Interior Minister Raymond Mboulou said that nearby hospitals were overflowing with injuries, with many wounded lying in hallways due to lack of space.

[8][9] Explosions at the arms dump started around 8:00 a.m. local time (07:00 UTC) in the densely populated arrondissement of Ouenzé, in the north of Brazzaville.

[10] The last notable explosion happened around 1:00 p.m.[8] Defence Minister Charles Zacharie Bowao went on national television to urge calm.

[11] The government of the Democratic Republic sent military personnel to the banks of the Congo River until it became clear that war had not broken out.

[10] Fires continued to ravage Brazzaville on 5 March, threatening to ignite a second arms depot with more substantial munitions.

[18] French and Russian firefighters joined in efforts to extinguish the fires and France immediately sent a shipment of aid.

The Red Cross was barred from entering the blast zone because of the risk of further explosions, and soldiers allowed in were concentrating on extinguishing the flames.

[22] As a result of the accident, the government decided to move all military camps out of the capital, a promise which had also been made after an explosion in 2009.

The former deputy secretary general was sentenced to five years of hard labor for the disaster by the National Security Council.

The poor hygienic and sanitary conditions in the sites for the displaced people and the ongoing rains helped spread the disease.

The covered market in Nkombo in northern Brazzaville and the Sacred Heart Cathedral in downtown were the worst hit sites.

[23] Film-maker Annette Kouamba Matondo drew attention to the tragedy in her 2012 work Au-delà de la souffrance.