I just heard of an incident where a group of people were caught unprepared by a flood. It is known as the "Bulacan State University Field Trip", Looking at the images online, I couldn't help but ponder as to whether their formation stance was a facilitator to their death and if a better formation could have saved their lives ? A similar incident also known as the "Tragic Patalpani Accident" had people standing in a horizontal formation. So my question is, assuming a group of 5 or more people are being stuck in a river with the stream approaching them, what formation could best save their lives calculating the water pressure and impact on their formation ? could standing using the line formation as drawn in the picture be better ?

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xYyDX.jpg)