Tokyo Electric Power Company, operator of the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, said Monday it had started injecting decontaminated water as a critical means to cool the plant's crippled reactors and reduce the massive buildup of radioactive water at the complex.

Representatives from the utility firm, also known as TEPCO, said it started using a newly installed water treatment system on Monday afternoon to circulate recycled, decontaminated water around reactors No. 1 to 3 in a bid to stabilize them.

"We've taken a large step in efforts to restore the crisis-hit plant," said Goshi Hosono, a special adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on the world's worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Hosono's comments came at a press conference announcing the start of the new water circulation process.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said separately that the central focus of the operation was to reduce the amount of radioactive water, as the facility is struggling to contain the massive volume of contaminated water from overflowing and further exacerbating the nuclear crisis.

TEPCO has been successful in processing some 1,850 tons of radioactive water that had accumulated at the plant in test runs of the new water treatment systems, according a spokesperson for the firm, who added it plans to inject 16 tons of water per hour into the three reactors, the majority of which will be water that has been decontaminated by the new installation.

The cores of the three most troubled reactors at the six reactor facility, located 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, likely underwent meltdowns following the March 11 magnitude-9.0 earthquake that triggered a massive tsunami that knocked out the plant's key cooling functions.

The emergency injection of pure water from outside the reactors to keep them cool since March 11 has led to the buildup of highly radioactive water inside the plant's facilities, some of which has leaked into pits connected to the reactors and into the sea, causing international alarm.

TEPCO however believes that with the new decontamination and recycling system in place, the reactors can be effectively cooled and the amount of radioactive water accumulated largely reduced as the the firm attempts to meet its deadline of stabilizing the reactors by the mid-July.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet