Memory Error while simulating matrix

[Slick]

Hello,

When i execute the code(part of an algorithm code) given below, i get
a MemoryError. The best part was that this ran a couple of time before
it began crashing.

------------------------ code starts here ----------------------
row = []                # list 
row = [0] * 1000000     # each row contains million columns 
matrix =[]              # contains a collection of rows  

for i in range(1000):   # creating a matix of 1000 rows each 
  matrix.append(row[:]) # having a million  columns

------------------------ code ends here ----------------------
 
------------------------- error message starts here ------------
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "a.py", line 7, in ?
    matrix.append(row[:])
MemoryError

------------------------- error message ends here --------------


Is there any way to prevent this error ? other than installing the
pyNum package ?

Any help to prevent this from happening is appriciated.

Thanks in advance

Max