台湾受灾群众情绪激动

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The military helicopters are bringing in the last of the stranded villagers now for some of their relatives and friends, who have been waiting here for days, there is relief. For others though, there is the anguish of not knowing.

"Help us, please save my children, I have been waiting four days already." Says this woman.

At her tent, anger, especially at local officials.

"They said it was safe and we didn't need to evacuate. Now there is not even a road to get back." He says.

And the man, who is the focus of much of the national blame is President Ma Ying-jeou, often confronted by angry survivors as he toured the disaster zone.

"How do you respond to people who blame you and your government, and say listen this was just all too slow to begin with, and then, when it did get underway, it just wasn't enough."

"Now, we certainly, I will take full responsibility, whatever the blame is, because, after all, I am the president of this country."

But President Ma says the slow start was because of bad weather, heavy rain left helicopters grounded.

"Once the weather is good, in one day, that is the 14th of August, we were able to evacuate 2518 people. It's a record."

But there was outrage last week, when he blamed local officials.

"They were not fully prepared."

So now he's seen comforting the grieving, apologizing, promising to do better. But as he opened the weekend baseball game, he was booed and jeered. Protesters demanded his resignation.

"We'll find out, not only to correct the mistakes, but also may try to punish the people who are responsible."

As the rescue operations slowly wind down, the focus will soon shift to rebuilding lives and communities. Taiwan's embattled president told me that simply repairing all the damage from Typhoon Morakot could take up to a year.

John Vause, cnn, Cishan, Taiwan.