Hatayspor player Kevin Soni has revealed that fajr prayer saved his life during the latest quake that struck Syria and Turkey, claiming lives of thousands of people, and the death toll still climbing.
On that fateful day, the Muslim player was awake at his home waiting to perform the morning prayer.
“I am a Muslim and I am very religious. What saved me was that I wanted to wait until 6:40 a.m. to say the first prayer of the day. That’s why I couldn’t sleep,” Soni said in an interview with Foot Mercato, Ghana Web reported.
“So I tell myself that if I had slept, seeing how everything fell in the house, I would certainly have died. It’s even sure. The stones that fell were huge. It was a seventeen-story building, imagine. So if I had slept, I think I would have died,” he added.
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🎙️ Kevin Soni, Hatayspor player: “What saved me was that I wanted to wait until 6:40am to say the first prayer of the day.
— Football Tweet ⚽ (@Football__Tweet) February 9, 2023
That’s why I couldn’t sleep. If I had slept, seen how everything fell, I would certainly have died.” pic.twitter.com/rQBtvGkGS2
A devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and Syria on February 6.
The earthquake hit at 4:17 am, followed by aftershocks as large as 6.4 and 6.5 magnitudes respectively only minutes later, leaving more than 29,000 people dead across both Turkey and Syria.
It has caused extensive damage across multiple cities and towns. Currently, ongoing rescue operations are taking place on the ground in a desperate bid to save lives.
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Traumatized
Though surviving the deadly quake, Soni still feels shaken by the catastrophe.
“Frankly, it’s an ordeal I’ve never experienced before. It’s really something that you don’t expect and that marks you for life,” he said.
“At the time, I said to myself it’s the end of the world and the end, period. I saw people die next to me. I am traumatized. Today, I realize that life hangs by a thread. It is in these moments that we realize that everything is vanity.
“Everyone abandons their house, their cars, and looks for a place to take refuge. It was really a situation worthy of a movie on Netflix except that it was the reality unfortunately. It’s the thing that shocked me the most since I started playing football and in my life,” he said.