TUBLAY, BENGUET, Philippines?With road cuts and massive landslides literally blocking residents? desire to resume their normal routine following recent typhoons, zip lines bridging mountains, no matter how dangerous, have been keeping them alive and their vegetables fresh.

Using chicken wires, scrap iron and iron bars, residents in the village of Caponga here created a 60-foot zip line, or a makeshift cable car system, to transport sick residents and carry their vegetables to market.

?That zip line is our lifeline here,? resident Alex Cosalan said.

When strong rains dumped by Typhoon ?Pepeng? washed out roads and triggered landslides, this vegetable-growing town was cut off from Baguio City and the capital La Trinidad town, where most of the supplies of basic commodities come from.

Thus, the town?s remaining supply of food and other commodities before Pepeng hit on Oct. 8 started to dwindle. Farmers? chayote harvests could not also be transported due to road cuts.

?We had to make do with whatever was available to eat,? farmer Billy Teodore said, noting they had to be resourceful to sustain their families while awaiting clearing of the roads.

To remedy the situation and bring the town?s sick residents to hospitals in urban centers, 30 local men thought of building the zip line.

They charged P5 for each bag of vegetable that is transported along the zip line running over where the road used to be.

The operators of the zip line do not encourage passengers as it can only accommodate only a light load, like bags of vegetables. But when there are medical emergencies, these can be used to ferry up to only two persons.

The zip line opens at 4 a.m. as trucks arrive to deliver vegetables to the trading post in La Trinidad, Baguio City and Metro Manila.

The zip line became a lifeline to Jornard Abe on Friday. Abe, who has a heart ailment, could not be taken to a hospital because the road was washed out.

?He has been urinating blood for days. He can?t walk because he hurt his back and his heart condition is getting worse,? said Abe?s cousin, Wagner Pikpikan.

Abe was strapped to a stretcher and was transported through the zip line?s car to reach a waiting public utility jeep that would take him to a hospital.

?We don?t normally recommend using the zip line to transport people but it?s the only way [out],? Cosalan said.

The zip lines, sometimes referred by locals as ?tram lines,? are widely used by farmers to transport vegetables from mountainside farms to roadsides.

Connie Subagan, a vegetable farmer and trader, said the zip lines have been helping local farmers in transporting their produce in the last 20 years.