A German flag at half-mast in Berlin. (Reuters)

Stockholm, Dec. 30 (Reuters): European leaders prepared their citizens for the worst as hopes dimmed for nearly 5,000 tourists, half of them Swedes and Germans, still missing four days after a tsunami tore through some of Asia?s most popular beach resorts.

Scandinavians fumed at their governments? initial lax response to Asia?s tsunami disaster as hopes dimmed today for some 5,000 foreign tourists, mostly Europeans, still missing four days after the wall of water hit.

Sweden feared its tourists had been hardest hit by the tragedy which killed nearly 120,000 people in Indonesia, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and other countries as far away as Africa. A foreign ministry official said more than 1,000 Swedes may have been killed, the worst death toll for any foreign country.

Swedish media said as many as 4,000 Swedes could be missing as the official 1,500 figure seemed to be based only on charter tours, without backpackers or those on scheduled flights. Newspapers across the Nordic region fired off editorials accusing their leaders of being too slow to respond to the initial disaster and to send out help to their countrymen.

Swedish tabloids were the harshest government critics. ?She went to the theatre,? said Aftonbladet, referring to foreign minister Laila Freivalds, saying she waited 30 hours after the initial disaster report to go to her office.

Some 1,000 Germans, 600 Italians, 464 Norwegians, 219 Danes, 200 Finns and 200 Czechs have been reported as missing, along with 294 Singaporean tourists..

The Swedish government has conceded it took too long to react, but no one at the time understood the scale of the disaster. Today, the Svenska Dagbladet daily screamed: ?Bring them home now?, referring to Swedes still stranded in Thailand. ?There is good reason to ask whether it took too long for governments in Denmark, Sweden and Norway to understand the scope of the catastrophe,? said leading Norwegian daily Aftenposten.

Former Finnish finance minister Sauli Niinisto, who saved himself and his two sons by clinging to a lamppost for two hours as the water kept rising, was highly critical of his government.

?I assumed that there would be an emergency meeting by the government within 4-5 hours of the disaster and more officials would be sent to Phuket,? he told a TV talk show after his ordeal in Khao Lak, the worst hit beach in Thailand, where he suffered a leg injury saving a Swedish child from drowning.

?After 18 hours, when I got in touch with Bangkok and Phuket, I realised we had not been taken seriously ... I was left with the feeling that no one wanted us anywhere.?

Tourist Benny Engard told Finnish daily Hufvudstadsbladet he could not reach a government helpline.?That?s just incredible in this ?Nokia-country?, with millions of phones.?