HONG KONG — A blizzard of millions in cash paralyzed a road in Hong Kong on Wednesday afternoon, when a security van spilled bundles of Hong Kong 500 dollar notes, presenting onlookers with a Christmas Eve test of whether to be good for goodness’ sake.

The police estimated that the equivalent of about $2 million was missing, local news reports said, suggesting that not everyone who saw the windfall had passed the goodness test.

“Anyone who picked up the cash concerned should hand it over to the police as soon as possible,” a district police officer, Wan Siu-hong, told reporters, according to Radio Television Hong Kong, a public broadcaster. “Otherwise, they may have committed the crime of theft.”

Until mid-December, several Hong Kong streets had been blocked for nearly three months by protesters demanding democratic elections. But the latest, brief traffic snarl was more in keeping with this city that has a reputation for chasing the dollar.