You could say that face masks is a valuable commodity these days.

Too bad the Penang police blew up three boxes filled with face masks.

Mistaken for a bomb

According to a report by Free Malaysia Today, the police was called to the Chinese consulate in Taman Selamat, Penang after officials spotted three unlabelled boxes outside their doorstep on Friday (31 January).

Fearing that it was a bomb, a Hazmat team and a bomb squad were reportedly deployed to the location.

They then decided to detonate the boxes.

However, instead of a giant boom, they discovered that the boxes didn't contain any explosive devices at all.

As a result, countless of perfectly fine and very precious N95 masks flew out of the boxes.

Here's a video of the incident:

After a round of investigation, the police found that the three boxes were actually left behind by a group of kind-hearted people in support of Wuhan.

In fact, three men reportedly stood outside the consulate carrying banners that read “Wuhan, hang in there” and “China, Jiayou”.

The men left after about 30 minutes, FMT reported.