People from the Marshall Islands plan to seek US$1 billion in compensation this year for damage to their health and environment caused by 67 US nuclear tests during the Cold War.

The cases in the US courts are being brought by former inhabitants and their descendents from the evacuated central Pacific atolls of Bikini and Enewetak, where the tests were held between 1946 and 1958.

A third atoll, Rongelap, will also bring a suit as a consequence of being unexpectedly showered with massive nuclear fallout during the Bravo test, the world's biggest ever nuclear explosion.

Rongelap, about 160 kilometres east of Bikini, also had to be evacuated and residents have not yet returned there or to Bikini.

The Marshall Islands, which is self-governing under a compact of free association with the United States, has made no progress with a petition filed six years ago to the US Congress seeking more compensation. This is prompting the atolls to take their cases back to the US court system.

Bikini Atoll will file a claim in the US courts this month, the 60th anniversary of their removal from the atoll by the US Navy to start the nuclear tests, according to Bikini Senator Tomaki Juda.

Their lawsuit will be an effort to get payment of the US$563 million judgment issued but not paid by the Nuclear Claims Tribunal in 2001, Bikini official Jack Niedenthal said on Wednesday.

Bikini was the site of 23 nuclear tests, including the 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb, which was the largest US weapon ever tested and 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Enewetak Atoll, the site of 44 nuclear tests, wants to get action on a US$386 million award by the tribunal.

Because of a lack of funds, the tribunal made only two small payments on these awards in 2002 and 2003, amounting to about US$2.2 million for Bikini and US$1.6 million for Enewetak.

The tribunal, set up under an agreement between the US and Marshall Islands governments in 1988, has never been given sufficient funds to pay its awards.

Source: China Daily