Japan announced Tuesday that it had succeeded in completing stage one in the process of stabilizing the tsunami-damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima.

The crippled reactors at the plant have finally been stabilized more than four months after the disaster.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that plans are proceeding as scheduled.

Naoto Kan said, "We have succeeded in clearing stage one as scheduled. We have come a long way and have completed definite objectives. We are coming close to the end of a serious crisis."

Officials say the plant operators were making steady progress toward their goal of bringing the reactors to a cold shutdown within six months.

Toshio Nishizawa, president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., walks past Goshi Hosono, state
minister for conclusion of the nuclear incident, during a joint press conference in Tokyo
Tuesday, July 19, 2011. The crippled reactors at its tsunami-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi
nuclear power plant have reached stability more than four months ago after the March 11
disaster, they said. Officials describing progress at the plant said radiation around the
tsunami-crippled plant has decreased from peak levels.

Radiation around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has decreased from peak levels.

For now, removal of the spent nuclear fuel is one of the main challenges that both Tokyo Electric Power Company and the government will be focusing on.

Goshi Hosono, nuclear crisis minister, said, "Removal of spent nuclear fuel from a seriously damaged nuclear reactor building is a challenge that no one in the world has faced before. It would be difficult to give a precise timeline of how long it would take to contain the reactors."

Japan has not set up a centralised system to check vegetables and meat for
radiation.

The damage at the plant was caused by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, leading to the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Workers have toiled under hot and harsh conditions to stabilize the plant since the cooling systems were destroyed by the natural disasters.

Japan has imposed a 20-km (12-mile) exclusion zone around the stricken nuclear
power plant.

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