The head of the UN atomic agency warned Monday against complacency on nuclear safety six months on from Fukushima, after it became clear his draft global "action plan" had been watered down.

"We must not lose our sense of urgency," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Yukiya Amano said at the start of a regular five-day board meeting of the watchdog in Vienna.

The gathering also saw Amano say "greater transparency" by Iran towards IAEA inspectors last month was insufficient to soothe Western worries that Tehran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

On March 11, a 9.0-magnitude quake rocked Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant. The resulting 14-metre (46-foot) ocean wave knocked out the power supply, the reactor cooling systems and back-up diesel generators.

The subsequent reactor meltdown forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and the banning of local farm produce. Six months on, engineers are still fighting to stop radiation leaking out.

The scale of the worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl in 1986 sparked fresh worries worldwide about the safety of the world's 440 nuclear power stations in around 30 countries.

Europe's biggest economy Germany, for example, decided to shut down all reactors by 2022, and Italian voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum blocking a return to nuclear power.

Amano, who is himself Japanese, presented to the board a 12-point "action plan" that he said "represents a significant step forward in strengthening nuclear safety."

The plan encourages fresh assessments of nuclear plants and emergency measures, as well as each country voluntarily hosting at least one "peer review" visit by foreign experts over the next three years.

For some diplomats, however, Amano's proposals have been watered down too much, most notably by Washington and Beijing, by for example stopping short of making such visits mandatory.

Earlier drafts proposed that 10 percent of the world's nuclear plants face peer reviews in the next three years, but this has since been dropped.

Amano appeared to concede some weakening, saying that in preparing the proposals, the "wide range of views" expressed by IAEA member states "varied in a number of areas" -- diplomatic speak for serious differences of opinion.

Just as he made his comments, an explosion hit France's Marcoule nuclear site, killing one person, but the country's energy ministry said there was no danger of a radiation leak.

Amano said that the IAEA had sent a request to French authorities for more information, calling the incident "another example" of the need to address nuclear safety.

The board was also due to be given a new and critical report on Iran's nuclear activities.

Amano said Monday that although Iran had shown "greater transparency" of late, Tehran was "not providing the necessary cooperation" to be able to conclude all its activities were peaceful as the Islamic republic says.

He added that the watchdog was "increasingly concerned" about "activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile", about which he said the agency continued to receive new information.

Amano said meanwhile that Syria had signalled its readiness to meet inspectors in Damascus next month to discuss a desert site bombed by Israel in 2007 and thought to have been a secret nuclear facility.

On June 9, the IAEA decided to report Syria's to the UN Security Council after concluding that the Dair Alzour site was "very likely" an undeclared reactor. There are also suspicions it was built with help from North Korea.

The IAEA said it had proposed October 10-11 for the talks.

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