The sharpest decline in European stocks since 2011 has been followed by a second day of volatile trading as investors flee risk because of global economic weaknesses.
Many stock markets, including the FTSE 100, recovered some ground lost on Wednesday in early Thursday trading - helped by some encouraging corporate results - though jitters soon outweighed the search for bargains.
The FTSE 100 closed down 0.25%, or 15.7 points, at 6,195.9 following a late rally as European Union officials pledged support for Greece.
That followed a 2.8% slump on Wednesday which saw £46bn wiped off the value of the FTSE.
It was a series of weak reports on the health of the two biggest economies in the world that sparked the big sell-off.
Hours after Chinese inflation data disappointed - falling to a near five-year low - it was revealed that US retail sales and producer prices both dropped last month.
The woeful economic signals started a safe-haven rally in US Treasuries while a sharp fall in the dollar lent modest support to oil prices, though Brent crude still shed 1.1% to $82.72-a-barrel as weak demand continued to dominate pricing.
Investors were already worried about the looming end to the US Federal Reserve's programme of quantitative easing (QE) this month before the global growth fears properly surfaced.
It was euro area weakness that dominated trading on Thursday.
The latest inflation figures for the eurozone showed annual growth of just 0.3% across the single currency bloc, doing nothing to dispel fears the European Central Bank's (ECB's) previous rate measures to boost activity had failed to make the grade.
It is facing increasing demands to start a programme of quantitative easing.
The International Monetary Fund recently forecast a 40% chance of eurozone recession though German Chancellor Angela Merkel used a speech on Thursday to urge euro nations not to try and spend their way back to prosperity.
He told an audience Europe must push ahead with efforts to cut public deficits and improve competitiveness, warning that the debt crisis had not yet been overcome and its causes eliminated.
While the UK's own economic performance is outstripping many of its major competitors, the FTSE 100 has hit 15-month lows on the back of the wider world's problems because of the market's exposure to mining and other commodity stocks.
Chancellor George Osborne has acknowledged that the stagnation in the eurozone is a major threat to the UK's recovery.
There is immediate concern about Greece.
Its main stock market fell 10% at one point on Wednesday as it also got to grips with worries its government may collapse next year, putting the country's crucial bailout programme in danger.
Greece's anti-establishment and anti-austerity party, Syriza, has established a solid lead in the polls and the country's 10-year bond yield - the interest rate it pays to service its debts - climbed to 8.9% on Thursday as shares continued to bleed value.
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