C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Numbers 16:34

Num 16:34

This fearful destruction of the ringleaders, through which Jehovah glorified Moses afresh as His servant in a miraculous way, filled all the Israelites round about with such terror, that they fled לקלם, “at their noise,” i.e., at the commotion with which the wicked men went down into the abyss which opened beneath their feet, lest, as they said, the earth should swallow them up also.