Numbers 16:30

into the pit into Sheol, the place of departed human beings. It was thought of as lying beneath the earth, or deep within it.

We are probably to think of the catastrophe as taking place in the form of an earthquake; or possibly the tradition may have grown up as a popular explanation of some deep fissure or chasm in the rocks.

32b. and all the men … their goods This half verse is the work of the compiler who combined the narratives. Korah's company of adherents (-the men that appertained unto K.") were not swallowed up in the earth; they died afterwards by fire (Numbers 16:35).