TOKYO - A massive sell-off on Wall Street and escalating fears of a global recession sent world stocks plunging Friday, with Japan's key index shedding nearly 10 percent to close out its worst week in history.

Despite recent moves by the world's central banks to thaw frozen credit markets and boost investor confidence, their efforts have fallen flat as markets hurtled toward a global equity crisis.

"Selling is unstoppable in New York and Tokyo," said Yutaka Miura, senior strategist at Shinko Securities Co. Ltd. in Tokyo. "Investors were gripped by fear."

Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations prepared to meet later Friday in Washington, but analysts in Asia said they were skeptical that the gathering would produce solutions to effectively contain the global financial contagion.

In Australia, where the S&P/ASX200 plummeted a record 8.3 percent, market watchers were calling it "Black Friday."

"It's way oversold in my opinion, and we haven't reached the bottom yet," said Roger Chandler, senior private client adviser with ABN AMRO Morgans in Sydney.

Key indices in Hong Kong, India and Singapore were all down about 7 or 8 percent. Mainland China's Shanghai Composite Index posted a more moderate decline of 3.6 percent.

As Europe opened, major markets also plunged. Britain's FTSE 100 index slid about more than 5 percent, while Germany's DAX was down 7 percent.

Investors in Japan were also unnerved by news that a mid-sized Japanese insurer, Yamato Life Insurance Co., went bankrupt Friday on losses related to global stock woes - one of the first to do so in Japan.

In Tokyo, the gut-wrenching turmoil left individual investors shellshocked. Over the last week, the Nikkei has lost nearly a quarter of its value.

Kenji Akasaka, 69, president of a local printing company, said he had never seen it this bad in the 40 years he has traded stocks. He said he invests mainly in blue-chips including Toyota Motor Corp. and Nintendo Co., both of which have lost about half their value over the last year.

"I pray before I go to bed that the Dow will recover," said Akasaka, 69, as he scanned a monitor displaying the latest market levels. "I get sleepless, thinking about losses."

In a bid to boost liquidity, India's central bank cut the cash reserve ratio - the amount of money banks must keep on hand - by 1 percentage point to 7.5 percent, just days after it had lowered the ratio by a half-point. The move will release 600 billion rupees (US$12.2 billion) into the financial system.