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A warehouse fire broke out on Friday afternoon at the Government Chinese Medicines Testing Institute in Tseung Kwan O, forcing dozens of people to flee the building.
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The fire was reported shortly after 3pm at the institute located on Pak Shing Kok Road.
Dense smoke began billowing from a storage area, prompting approximately 50 people to evacuate the premises on their own before firefighters arrived.
Emergency personnel successfully brought the blaze under control, and initial assessments confirmed that no one was hurt during the incident. Authorities have launched an investigation to determine the exact cause of the fire.
The facility is a significant hub for the city's pharmaceutical research, having been established in 2017 as one of the two flagship institutions for the development of Chinese medicine in Hong Kong.
Situated adjacent to the The Chinese Medicine Hospital of Hong Kong, the testing center is equipped with sophisticated technology and high-end equipment designed to improve testing methods and develop international standards for herbal medicine.
Beyond its laboratory functions, the building is home to an extensive herbarium on its ground floor that displays roughly 3,500 different specimens.
The collection includes over 300 rare and precious samples donated by the National Medical Products Administration, featuring unique items such as a massive wild Astragalus root and a Cistanche deserticola specimen measuring 1.5 meters in length.
