''Never has the step into a new year felt heavier," said Goeran Persson, Sweden's premier who urged Swedes to light candles in their windows as a vigil. ''We should have celebrated with fireworks and festivities. Now that feels completely wrong."
Many of the estimated 1 million revelers around the glittering, firework-illuminated harbor in Sydney marked a moment of silence for victims.
''You could tell people were a little more reverent tonight; it was kept in people's thoughts," British tourist Mark Stiles said.
Stores in major German cities said sales of fireworks were down, in some cases by a third. Some retailers attributed the restraint to appeals from Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and others for the money usually spent on pyrotechnics to be donated.
Germany's main party at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin was going ahead, but the revelers were urged on big screens to donate to UNICEF. Television stations turned their New Year's Eve galas into charity events for tsunami victims.
Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel of Austria also urged people to forgo fireworks. The city of Innsbruck canceled its display in a silent vigil for 40 residents of the western Austrian province of Tyrol who remain missing in Asia.
Thousands in London fell silent for two minutes in memory of the lives lost in Asia. Then as Big Ben struck midnight, a spectacular fireworks display burst in the sky above the River Thames, casting a brilliant glow over Westminster houses of Parliament.
Most government agencies in Indonesia, where the death toll was by far the largest, canceled fireworks and urged prayer.
''Let's welcome the new year without a party because now we are filled with concern and sadness," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said. ''We are still mourning. Let's pray together and hopefully God will not give us another disaster."
