(TOKYO, April 11) While a month has passed since the March 11 killer earthquake and ensuing tsunami, prospects remain bleak that Japan's worst ever nuclear crisis will end any time soon amid a series of challenges left to regain control of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and to clean up radioactive contamination.

Japan also needs to restore confidence overseas by living up to its promise to provide sufficient information on the disaster, as concerns linger especially among neighboring countries over the impact of the recent disposal of low-level radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean and the safety of Japanese products.

The plant's six nuclear reactors are in a relatively stable condition compared with before, and leakage of highly radioactive water into the sea has stopped, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. says. But the utility is still walking a tightrope in its efforts to contain the crisis as many of the units need to have coolant water pumped from outside and nitrogen injected to reduce the risks of hydrogen explosions.

''We are fighting against a monster named nuclear power with human wisdom,'' Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda told a press conference in late March, as the country grappled with a situation it had never previously faced with its nuclear reactors.