Hundreds of squatters have been left without shelter in Suka Asih subdistrict, Tangerang. The administration is clearing away illegal homes as part of its bid to win the Adipura clean city award.

Maria Irawati, 30, was visiting her sister when the bulldozers arrived. Her sister has been living beside the tracks with her husband and six children for almost 20 years.

Widespread confusion about the eviction meant residents were completely unprepared for the carnage. Many lost not only their homes, but all their possessions.

Clothes and other salvaged treasures lie strewn over bushes, collapsed walls and in the public toilets. Many items will not survive the rain.

Some residents have been forced to send their children away; others have no alternative but to sleep out in the open.

Eti, 42, earns Rp 5,000 a day as an onion peeler. Now, a three-by-three meter patch of tiles is all that remains of her home of 17 years.

A young man contemplates the pile of corrugated iron and cheap timber he used to call home.

Railway dwellers pick grimly through the remains of their homes, some of which stood for more than 30 years.