TOKYO — A crucial stage in the decades-long job of decommissioning Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant began Tuesday, with operators starting to dismantle huge protective covers from one of the reactors. 
 
 The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station suffered meltdowns in three of its six reactors after a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit the country in March 2011. The disaster killed around 16,000 people, forced some 300,000 to evacuate their homes, and left a huge area of land unusable for decades. 
 
 The plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, installed six 136-foot covers over one of the reactors in October that year to stop radioactive materials escaping. 
 
 Related: Thousands of Fukushima Nuke Refugees to Be Allowed Home 
 
 The operator began on Tuesday to remove the first of these covers, an essential stage before they can extract the 292 spent fuel rods inside. They hope to remove all the covers by the end of next year, and begin extracting the fuel rods in 2020. ||||| TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan on Tuesday approved an increase in compensation payments for the Fukushima crisis to 7.07 trillion yen ($57.18 billion), as tens of thousands of evacuees remain in temporary housing more than four years after the disaster. 
 
 Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the operator of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station, will receive 950 billion yen more in public funds on top of the 6.125 trillion agreed earlier, the utility and the government said. 
 
 The increase, agreed after a request by Tepco, adds to the bill for taxpayers for the disaster in March 2011, when three reactors melted down after an earthquake and tsunami, in the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986, destroying businesses and livelihoods. 
 
 Tepco has face a stream of legal cases seeking compensation over the disaster. 
 
 Electricity bills for Japanese households have also risen 25 percent since the catastrophe as the country resorted to importing more fossils fuels with the gradual shutdown of all nuclear reactors for safety checks and upgrades. 
 
 Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government and Tepco, which was bailed out by taxpayers in 2012, are undertaking an unprecedented cleanup to lower radiation levels in towns closest to the plant, although some areas will likely remain off limits for decades. 
 
 Inside the plant, Tepco has struggled to bring the situation under control and it is estimated removing the melted fuel from the wrecked reactors and cleaning up the site will cost tens of billions of dollars and take decades to complete. 
 
 The government plans to revoke evacuation orders for most people forced from their homes by the disaster within two years as part of a plan to cap compensation payouts and speed up reconstruction. 
 
 (Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Aaron Sheldrick and Ed Davies) ||||| This video shows various measures against dust dispersion during the dismantling work of cover panels over Unit 1 reactor building. At Unit 1, rubble from the damaged building caused by the hydrogen explosion is still scattered and needs to be removed. Cover panels were placed over the rubble to prevent the dispersion of radioactive materials, but dismantling of the panels started in July 2015 to remove the rubble. Wall pannels will be taken down around September 2016. 
 
 Watch the video here
– It's going to take decades to completely decommission the Fukushima nuclear power plant, but a critical step in that process began in earnest today, reports NBC News. One of the six 136-foot covers draped over one of the plant's nuclear reactors to keep radioactive materials from seeping out is being painstakingly removed. Tepco officials say it will take till the end of 2016 to pry all six covers off, and till at least 2020 to remove the nearly 300 spent fuel rods lurking underneath. The project, which was supposed to commence last July, was previously postponed because of fears of radiation escaping. "For the safety of Fukushima's residents, we would like the work to proceed with extra care," says the chief of a group of monitors overseeing the project. The total cost and time for the entire decommissioning assignment: tens of billions of dollars over 30 years or so, NBC notes. Meanwhile, the Japanese government today approved an increase in compensation payments to Tepco to a total of $57.2 billion, Reuters reports. That's $7.7 billion added onto the $49.5 billion in taxpayer-funded aid that Tepco had previously been approved to receive. (Check out more details about the decommissioning project on Tepco's dedicated website.)