Unfortunately, I live in Mexicali, where the quake epicenter was. Those mountains are about 30 miles away from the city, and after the earthquake, the cloud of dust moved in.

The city has an earthquake culture (5.0 shakes are usual) so the houses and buildings are made with a more strict building code. In the city, some houses presented structural damages, but none of them fell during the shake. My house is a 2 story concrete block edification, and only suffered minor wall cracks (My wife made me put the bed on the first floor, due to the aftershakes that we have been having).

In the Mexicali Valley, it is a different story, a lot of houses where destroyed, because the earth "cracked open" in a lot of places, houses where "cut" in two, some of them fell into the cracks. In other parts the quakes opened cracks that started to emanate hot water (like little geisers) and flooded with water and mud nearby houses. A lot of irrigation channels got damaged and filtered water to the underground. Fortunately, there where only 2 deaths and about 250 wounded, it was a lucky thing that the quake hit on a festive sunday, so almost everybody was outside their homes (We are BIG fans of sunday grilling carne asada). Most of the services (electricity, water phone lines) where restored in 24-48 hours in the city. In the valley about 20,000 people went homeless, they do not have water or electricity, their houses are total loss. Right now we are making some donations that are collected in various points of the city to send a little bit of help to our brothers in need, we are donating food, water, tents, blankets, diapers, etc. The government and military are implementing contingency plans and are already looking for some options to put a roof over their heads (They have even commented about some mobile homes that where used in Katrina).