Hawzah News Agency (Yellowknife - Canada) - Rami Kassem's nephew narrowly avoided the deadly explosion that killed more than 100 people last week, and injured thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands — he was home sick from work that day.

"It was a nightmare for the people over there, and bad dreams and nightmares for me and my family here," said Kassem.

When 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, warehoused at the capital's port — which has been stored there for six years without safety measures — exploded, it levelled the port and collapsed buildings within a three-kilometre radius.

As soon as he saw the first images, Kassem phoned his loved ones 9,000 kilometres away.

"The first thing you do is to call your family to make sure they are all safe, one by one, my aunts, my uncles, my brothers, my friends."

Kassem, who co-owns the coffee shop Javaroma in Yellowknife, is working with the local Islamic centre to fundraise for Islamic Relief Canada. The group is on the ground providing meals, hygiene kits and health care to people sheltering in schools, mosques and churches.

"You tear when you look at the destruction after they built the country. You feel very bad. You remember those bad days that Lebanon was like this, in the wartime in the 70s and 80s."

All of Kassem's family are safe but their business was damaged in the explosion.

"I have to support my family, but nothing is enough. With this and the harbour closed, we don't know what's going to happen," said Kassem.

"There are people that can't even stay in their homes."

Images of the city in ruin are haunting Kassem, who lived through civil war and was shot near the heart by a sniper in 1985.

Kassem's parents flew from Palestine in 1948 and became refugees in Lebanon. Kassem was born as a refugee there and was "stateless" until he became a Canadian citizen in 2001.

The support flowing into Beirut makes victims of the blast "feel like they are not by themselves in the whole world," he said.

Someone even drove from Hay River to Yellowknife to give Kassem support to send back home, he said. 

"Slowly, slowly, people will overcome, so long as Lebanese people feel there is support coming from their own people, from Canadians as well, the Canadian government, it means a lot to them," he said.

"We are human at the end of the day."