Former fishing boat crew members who developed cancer and other symptoms after sailing close to a 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test site in the Bikini Atoll plan to seek workers' compensation next month, a doctor supporting them said Wednesday.

So far only crew members of tuna fishing boat Fukuryu Maru No. 5 have been compensated under the scheme, according to a civil group based in Kochi Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku.

Around eight people — former crew members and their bereaved families — living in Kochi will apply for compensation in February under the seamen's insurance managed by the Japan Health Insurance Association.