Marshall Islands president Christopher Loeak has called on the United States to resolve the "unfinished business" of its nuclear testing legacy in the western Pacific nation.

Compensation provided by Washington "does not provide a fair and just settlement" for the damage caused, President Loeak told a ceremony in Majuro marking the 60th anniversary of the devastating hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll which contaminated many islands with radioactive fallout.

"We remain the closest of friends with the United States, but there is unfinished business relating to the nuclear weapons testing that must be addressed," he said.

President Loeak says the unfinished business not only affected the four atolls that the United States acknowledged as exposed, but also many other islands throughout the country.

In 1983, 29 years after the March 1, 1954 explosion, a compensation agreement was reached in which Washington provided the Marshall Islands with $150 million to settle all nuclear test claims.

But more than 10 years later, during then president Bill Clinton's administration, formerly secret documents about the nuclear tests were released and confirmed dozens of islands were exposed to the fallout.

President Loeak called this "dramatic new information" that had not been revealed to Marshall Islands negotiators.

"It is abundantly clear that the agreement was not negotiated in good faith and does not provide a fair and just settlement of the damages caused," he said.

US ambassador Thomas Armbruster, who delivered prepared remarks in both English and Marshallese languages, said "words are insufficient to express the sadness" of the 60th anniversary of the nuclear test.

But, because of the nuclear weapons tests, "today we live in a safer world", Ambassador Armbruster added.

The United States is continuing to work with the Marshall Islands to provide health care and environmental monitoring of several affected islands, he said.

Japan commemorates anniversary

Nearly 2,000 people marched in a Japanese city to mark the 60th anniversary of the nuclear test at Bikini atoll.

The 1954 test contaminated the Japanese tuna fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon V), which was near the atoll when the test occurred.

The ship's chief radioman Aikichi Kuboyama died of acute organ malfunction nearly seven months later at the age of 40, while 15 others among the boat's 23 crew members died of cancer and other causes later.

While the precise cause of Mr Kuboyama's death has been disputed, the incident sparked an anti-nuclear movement in Japan nine years after the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the closing days of World War II.

Some 1,800 people marched Saturday to Kuboyama's grave in the port city of Yaizu, 170 kilometres southwest of Tokyo.

The city has held similar events to commemorate the incident for three decades, while the boat has been refitted and put on display at a memorial hall in Tokyo since 1976 with about 100,000 visitors every year.

"I want to see nuclear power abolished," Akira Ibi, a Yaizu citizen, told the Jiji Press news agency, adding he also wanted to get rid of a nearby nuclear power plant on the Pacific coast.

The Fukushima crisis, sparked off by a massive earthquake and tsunami, has left tens of thousands temporarily homeless after the nuclear plant meltdown that spewed radiation into the environment.

Inadequate compensation

Bikini islander Hinton Johnson criticised the level of compensation the displaced Bikinians receive from the US-provided funds.

"Today, each person receives $46 per month or a little over one dollar per day," he said during the ceremony.

Although the Nuclear Claims Tribunal had awarded the Bikinians more than $560 million in compensation and nuclear test clean up funding, there was no fund to pay them from, he said.

"We ask the US and Marshall Islands governments to provide the money for the tribunal's award for the time we've been homeless and unable to return to our homeland," Mr Johnson said.

AFP