Official ceremonies took place in major Swedish cities and about 440 Swedes also took part in an emotional beachside ceremony in the Thai resort of Khao Lak that included flowers, incense and music.

As many as 20,000 Swedes were vacationing in southeast Asia at the time of the tsunami on December 26, 2004, most of them in Thailand.

More than 220,000 people were killed and the lives of millions more were altered forever by the tsunami, unleashed by one of the world's largest-ever earthquakes which struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

In Sweden, a minute's silence was observed and 543 candles -- one for every Swedish person dead or missing -- lit during each of the ceremonies in Stockholm, Malmo and Gothenburg.

In Stockholm about 300 people, some of them survivors, others friends and relatives of the dead and ordinary citizens, braved sub-zero temperatures and gathered at the open air Skansen park.

Muffled against the cold they took part in a 45-minute ceremony at which the country's King Carl XVI Gustaf, Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria and Prime Minister Goran Persson were present. Hymns were sung and poems read.

Candles were lit to form a long alley on the snow-covered ground as thick flakes floated in an icy wind.

"Many things have changed... I look at 'time' from another point of view," said Martin Jamtlid who lost several relatives in the catastrophe.

"The year that has just passed has been the longest of my life. For me it is a question of starting to try to find peace and reconciliation."

Persson told the TT news agency of his "personal sadness and sense of loss of the people I knew who have died."

He spoke, too, of his "responsibility to right the weaknesses which existed in our organization in the first 24 hours (after the tsunami) above all." Sweden's government has over the past year been repeatedly criticized for its slow and lackluster response to the tragedy, with little communication and assistance available to thousands of Swedish survivors.

Early this month, a government-appointed commission into the tsunami issued a scathing report that charged the government "lacked organization to handle serious crises."

Foreign Minister Leila Freivalds said Saturday that she would not attend the ceremonies as "my presence has sparked reactions" from the survivors and the families of those who died.

An exhibition was due to open in Stockholm Monday at the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities entitled "After the Tsunami", in which Swedish and Asian children who survived the tragedy recount their harrowing ordeals.

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