Imagine a  nuclear detonation. Visualise the damage and destruction from the resulting shock waves. Roofs and windows on every building are blown out. What is left standing are skeletal concrete structures that withstood the blast. When the dust, debris and thermal radiation settle a bit, survivors (if any) see a silent, eerie ghost town.

But it wasn’t a nuclear detonation. It was a swamp of locusts at work. They descended on the area, stripped every metal structure or parts with military precision. From window frames, roller shutter doors to cable trunking. Even wiring inside the walls and ceiling were yanked out. But the locusts weren’t insects. They were human scrap metal scavengers or besi buruk collecors, as we call them. Now; imagine you are the helpless owner stuck with an unsellable, unrentable property saddled by a hefty bank loan. Financial apocalypse for certain.

Photographed on location at the part-abandoned township of Bandar Armada Putra, Pulau Indah.