Standing before hundreds during a candlelight vigil here, 11-year-old Briton Tilly Smith and 10-year-old Thai Patiwat Komkla calmly recited verse in English and Thai as part of commemorations for those killed by the waves.

Some 5,000 lanterns were released into the sky afterwards, rising gently into the darkness over Khao Lok in the worst-hit province of Phang Nga.

Earlier, crowds of foreigners could be seen grieving during private ceremonies on the shore, and Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra led the nation in mourning as he laid the foundation stone for a tsunami memorial.

"It is not often that we have the opportunity to be part of a historic moment that will be remembered for generations to come," Thaksin said.

More than 220,000 people were killed last December 26 when the giant waves crashed into Indian Ocean shores in a death toll that recalls "the unprecedented scale and ferocity of the natural calamity," Thaksin said.

Around 5,400 people were killed in Thailand alone -- 2,436 of them foreign tourists from 37 countries -- and another 637 are listed as missing.

During the day ceremonies took place throughout southern Thailand on beaches laid to waste by the waves as Thais and foreigners came together to remember the dead.

At Bang Nieng in Phang Nga province, hundreds lined up earlier to sign remembrance books in the shadow of a police patrol boat that was washed one kilometer (half a mile) inland by the killer waves and now stands as a memorial to the catastrophe.

Many of the messages were brief, with one reading, "We miss you every day", while another simply asked "Why?!"

Swedish couple Mari Olsson and Michael Sanden were among the crowd who were laying flowers and photos of the dead at an altar.

The pair had come back to Thailand with their two surviving daughters to remember a third who was killed when the entire family was caught up in the giant waves.

"We didn't want to be home at Christmas, we didn't want to celebrate (Christmas Eve)," Olsson said.

Mourners from Sweden, which suffered one of the heaviest death tolls of any nation outside Asia, also remembered the dead at Khao Lak in a ceremony with flowers, incense and music.

The 90-minute service was filled with music, mostly songs in Swedish but also an English-language hit by 1970s Swedish pop group ABBA, "I Have a Dream".

Also in Khao Lak, about 100 people held a prayer service in German, reading the names of the dead, and then setting flowers into the sea. At a French service on the grounds of the devastated Sofitel resort, Gerard Cohen said he lost five relatives in the disaster.

"I think it will always be a difficult moment to think about this place. I don't think that I'll come back," he said.

On Phuket's Patong beach, Australian Ingrid Hastie threw flowers into the sea in memory of her mother who drowned in her hotel room, and declared she would never return to the holiday island.

Hastie was one of several dozen Australians commemorating their 23 compatriots who died in the waves.

The mourners set red roses and purple orchids into the sea, embracing each other as the waves carried the petals back to the shore near wreaths laid beneath an Australian national flag erected in the sand.

"This was the hurdle. I think we're over it," she said.

Also on Phuket, a memorial event was held at Mai Khao, where in the days following the tsunami desperate survivors posted photos and names of their missing loved ones.

Four small shells painted with the names of victims were attached to a long wall adorned with teddy bears and other children's toys commemorating the victims from more than 25 countries.

Some 1,500 people gathered on Phi Phi island to lay orchids and garlands of white flowers on a tsunami altar, including Thai diving instructor Apichart Mukda who broke his leg in the disaster.

"The tsunami is my worst memory," he said, speaking from a wheelchair.

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