Three quarters of the western coastline on Indonesia's Sumatra island is destroyed, and some towns were totally wiped out by this week's earthquake and tsunamis, a military official who visited the region said Wednesday. "The damage is truly devastating," said Maj. Gen. Endang Suwarna, the military of commander of the island's Aceh province, who toured the coast by helicopter Wednesday. "Seventy-five percent of the west coast and some places its 100 percent. These people are isolated and we will try and get them help." The area around the town of Meulaboh _ a fishing village of 40,000 residents _ bore the brunt of Sunday's 9.0 magnitude earthquake, which sent massive tidal waves thundering across the Indian Ocean that killed more than 60,000 people in a dozen countries. An Associated Press Television News crew flew over town after town on the coast Wednesday, and saw villages covered in mud and sea water. Most homes had their roofs ripped off or were flatted by the forces of Sunday's disaster. There were few signs of life, except for a handful of villagers scavenging for food on the beach. The area has been largely unreachable by land and sea, but survivors who have made their way to population centers have described massive damage and death. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said officials have recovered 3,400 bodies from Meulaboh, and other officials said they expect to find at least 10,000 in that town alone. Indonesia's official death toll of almost 33,000 does not yet include those killed in districts on the West coast.
