Tokyo ( CNN ) -- The owners of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant must start paying up to 1 million yen ( $ 12,000 ) per household to residents displaced or forced indoors by the nuclear accident there , Japan 's government ordered Friday . The Tokyo Electric Power Company will start handing out checks `` as smoothly and as early as possible , '' hopefully by April 28 , its president , Masataka Shimizu , told reporters . Sole residents will receive 750,000 yen and multi-person households will get 1 million , Shimizu said , with the company 's interim cost estimated at about $ 600 million . A government committee ordered the payments as an advance on the compensation that Tokyo Electric will owe nearby residents and businesses for the month-old crisis at Fukushima Daiichi , Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Friday . Edano said the government hopes to have payments in residents ' hands by Japan 's `` Golden Week , '' a string of national holidays that begins April 29 . Tokyo Electric offered a token payment to residents of 10 municipalities around the plant in early April . But officials in one of those towns , Namie , rejected the offer , saying it amounted to about $ 12 for each of its roughly 20,000 residents . Tokyo Electric has no timetable for resolving the accident , and the yet-unknown cost of compensation has called the survival of Japan 's largest utility into question . The Japanese government has agreed to support the company to keep power flowing to its 25 million customers without big rate increases , Deputy Finance Minister Fumihiko Igarashi told CNN , but he said a government takeover of the utility was unlikely . `` The way the government will approach that is still in the decision process , '' Igarashi said . The utility reported 2010 profits of more than 1.4 trillion yen ( $ 17 billion ) . About 78,000 people living within 20 kilometers ( 12.4 miles ) of the plant were ordered out of their homes in the days after the March 11 accident , which now is ranked at the top of the international scale for nuclear disasters . Those living another 10 kilometers out were told to remain indoors as the plant belched radioactive particles into the environment from three damaged reactors . Monday , Japanese authorities told residents of five municipalities in that outer belt and beyond to evacuate within a month , due to lower levels of radioactive contamination that are likely to pose a long-term health hazard . Other towns have been put on notice that evacuations may be required soon , bringing the total number of people directly affected so far to about 146,000 , according to Japanese government estimates . But in Washington , the U.S. State Department on Friday lifted a departure recommendation for families of U.S. diplomats in Japan . While it still advises Americans to stay more than 50 kilometers from the plant , the latest notice calls the situation `` dramatically different '' than in mid-March . `` Today , while the situation remains serious , and there is still a possibility of unanticipated developments , cooling efforts are ongoing and successful , power , water supply , and back-up services have been partially or fully restored , and planning has begun to control radioactive contamination and mitigate future dangers , '' the travel alert states . Plant workers have been battling to cool the cores of reactors 1-3 at Fukushima Daiichi , about 240 kilometers ( 150 miles ) north of Tokyo , for a month . The plant was swamped by the tsunami that followed March 11 's historic earthquake , knocking out normal coolant systems . All three cores are believed to have been damaged by overheating in the aftermath of the tsunami , but a Friday report by the Atomic Energy Society of Japan painted a fresh picture of the extent of the damage . The zirconium alloy sheaths that surround the fuel rods in the reactor core are believed to have ruptured in all three units , sending molten uranium fuel pellets tumbling to the bottom of the reactors . The pellets are since believed to have cooled and solidified at the reactor bases or in the framework of the fuel assembly , according to the report . The Atomic Energy Society is an association of nuclear engineers , scientists and professors . Its deputy director , Takashi Sawada , called the new account the clearest picture to date of conditions inside the damaged reactors . `` It 's our best effort to imagine what the core looks like , '' he said . About 70 % of the fuel rods in the No . 1 reactor have been damaged , the report states . In reactor No . 2 , that figure is 30 % , and in No . 3 , 25 % . In addition , the pools that house used but still-energetic spent fuel assemblies are an ongoing concern , Sawada said . Hydrogen explosions blew apart the reactor buildings at units 1 and 2 , while the No . 4 reactor building has been damaged by fires of still-unknown origin -- leaving the pools exposed to the environment . `` If there 's water enough , there 's no problem , '' he said . `` But if some of the fuel is damaged , fission products will come out from those pools . '' At the plant on Friday , efforts continued to drain highly radioactive water from the basements and service tunnels of the reactor units ' turbine plants -- a necessary first step to restoring normal cooling systems . Japanese authorities drew the ire of fishermen and some of their country 's neighbors by authorizing the dumping of thousands of tons of less-contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean last week . The 10,000-plus ton discharge was billed as an emergency measure aimed at making room for the more dangerous fluid , some of which is believed to be leaking from the No . 2 reactor . More than 9,000 tons of that came from a waste treatment facility at the plant , which could hold up to 30,000 tons now that it 's empty , Tokyo Electric officials said . Crews have been laying fresh pipes to the treatment center and hope to start transferring water from unit 2 on Sunday , the company said . But its capacity could be only a fraction of the volume now sloshing around in the turbine building basements , and engineers are still pouring hundreds of tons of water into the reactors every day to keep them cool . Susan Olson and CNN 's Paula Hancocks contributed to this report for CNN .
NEW : A Japanese report paints a new picture of the state of the reactors . NEW : The United States lifts a travel warning , citing improved conditions at the nuclear plant . Tokyo Electric must pay 1 million yen to displaced households and 750,000 to individuals . Comment: