AUSTRALIA: Two Australian flags flew at half-mast from the Harbour Bridge in Sydney yesterday, writes Padraig Collins, in Sydney
The Museum of Contemporary Art flew both the Australian and Aboriginal flags at half-mast. It was a poignant reminder on this beautiful spring day that Australia is a nation in mourning.
About 10,000 people attended the "Australians Together" ceremony at the Domain in Sydney. It was the biggest event on a day when there were scores of commemorations around the city and country.
If the crowd was less than expected it was because the majority of people were attending events commemorating people from specific areas.
Several hundred crowded into Coogee Oval to remember the six Dolphins rugby league players who died in Bali.
Furthermore, as one woman said to The Irish Times: "Maybe people are afraid of gathering in large numbers now." A friend of hers had been at a nightclub the night before and found it almost empty.
Ms Geraldine Doogue of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation hosted the proceedings at the Domain, which is minutes away from the Sydney Opera House.
Ms Doogue said if anything positive was to be taken from the last week, it was the courage shown by so many young people trying to help others in Bali.
This showed that "the future of Australia was in safe hands", she said.
Addressing the crowd at the Domain, the Governor of New South Wales, Ms Marie Bashir, said she spoke with a heavy heart and great sadness. She said the cruel act and flagrant disregard for human life in Bali had left Australians "with a sense of pain, rage and sorrow".
In a video message, the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, urged mourners to preserve Australia's open, tolerant and generous society and vowed his government would hunt down those responsible for the blast in Indonesia.
"Let us remember the people for their love of life and what they gave to others and to their country," he said.
"Let us resolve to find those who committed this foul deed and bring them to justice. But let us also embrace not only each other but all the peoples of the world in peace," Mr Howard said.
Mr Ron Coote, a former Australian rugby league international, spoke at the ceremony on behalf of the many sports club victims of the bomb.
"The reason we feel so much pain today is because we have lost friends who were enjoying life to the max," he said, as people in the crowd wept.
Nicky Webster, a teenager who performed at the opening ceremony of the Olympics two years ago, sang Somewhere Over The Rainbow and dedicated it to the young people who died in the bombing and friends of hers who were in Bali at the time.
Over 100 of the more than 180 people who died in the bombing were Australian. Proportionately, almost as many Australians died in Bali as Americans on September 11th last year.