Demolition crews tear into a shantytown in the Philippines, ignoring the desperate pleas of residents for them to stop.

Around 100 families were living here, squatting on a disused private lot in the east of the capital Manila.

But now residents have been forcibly evicted in order to make way for commercial development.

Authorities said they offered an eviction order last week and advised the families to relocate to an area outside of the city where housing was being offered.

Slum residents though say they declined to relocate as the new area was prone to landslides, and they were given no formal notice before the demolition.

(SOUNDBITE) (Filipino) COMMUNITY LEADER ROMEO HUGADO:

"We trusted our city hall officials to help us, but we were abandoned. What happened to us was very unfortunate, we can't do anything."

Manila has the largest number of informal setters in the Philippines, with more than one-and-a-half million people living on empty lots owned by private companies or the government.

Several slum communities in the capital have been destroyed in the past year to make way for infrastructure and property projects.