UK shares, along with global indices, were decidedly lower on Thursday as UK retail sales numbers put a dampener on sentiment but China was the big trigger.
FTSE100 is down around 37 points, or 0.63% to 6,363 at the time of writing.
Despite positive manufacturing data for August, the UK retail sales figures for July fell short of analysts' expectations.
They increased 4.2% in July compared to a year ago, but the experts had expected a 4.4% increase.
Markets are heading lower as investors take flight at the Chinese gloom, where the sell-off in equities continues. Shanghai closed out at 3,664 - 129 points lower, or 3.42%.
Greece received its first €26bn tranche of its €86bn bailout and made a €3.2bn repayment to the ECB, but traders focused instead on China.
Davd Madden, at IG, said: "Stock markets around Europe are suffering because the decline overnight in the Far East has spooked dealers in the West.
"The great worry is that China will undergo a dramatic drop in the rate of growth, and the knock-on effect to Europe will damage the recovery. It used to be just Australia that would catch a cold when China sneezed, but the Chinese selloff is far more infectious than initially thought."
To company matters, and big cap miners howere were enjoying rises as metals prices firmed. On Footsie the biggest gainer was Anglo American (LON:AAL), up 4.86% to 743.9p.
Packaging group Mondi was the biggest loser- down 2.61% at 1,494p.
Oil price slides sent the big oil firms down. BP (LON:BP.),shed 0.10% to 367.15p. Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSB) leaked 0.06% to 1,739p while BG Group (LON:BG.) lost 0.91% to 1,036p.
Shares in Premier Oil (LON:PMO) backtracked 0.15p to 96p as it blamed write-offs for a dip into the red but later shares lifted 6.6% to 102.5p. The group said it was well placed despite the fall in crude prices.
High Street stationer WH Smith (LON:SMWH) fell 1.08% to 1,553p despite a forecast of slightly higher-than-expected annual results.
Kaz Minerals (LON:KAZ), formerly known as Kazakhmys, jumped 13.17% to 176.20p after it forecast zinc and silver output at the top end of expectations and maintained its guidance on copper for 2015. Analysts said the rise was also due to the devaluation of the Kazakhstan tenge.
Shares in Vast Resources (LON:VAST) rose 8% to 1.35p as it commissioned the plant at its Pickstone-Peerless gold mine and has earmarked first gold production and sales for the end of this month (August).
It marks a further milestone in this firm's transition into a cash generative mining company.
Shares in ITM Power (LON:ITM) added 5.45% to 29p a pop as it reached another goal - the Thüga group's power-to-gas plant in Germany has qualified to offer secondary balancing power.
ITM provided the electrolyser to the plant in 2013.
Another notable riser was Copper Development Company (LON:CDC), up 29.41% to 1.10p.