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Flood-hit communities around NSW are continuing their clean-up efforts, with six deaths now confirmed ahead of more predicted rain.

The most recent fatality was a man believed to be in his 40s whose body was found near Terragon, south of Murwillumbah on Friday afternoon.

About 400 personnel across the NSW Rural Fire Service, Fire & Rescue NSW and the Australian Defence Force are joining locals to start the clean-up effort.

"The immense scale of the flooding is unprecedented and we are putting equally unprecedented resources into the significant clean-up and long-term recovery effort," Emergency Services and Resilience Minister Steph Cooke said.

Ms Cooke will also soon take on the role of Flood Recovery Minister, Premier Dominic Perrottet announced on Friday.

Concerns have been raised about the depth of the government's preparation, resourcing and response to the disastrous floods, with Mr Perrottet acknowledging on Friday it was likely mistakes were made.

Those will be identified when the government conducts its reviews and the premier has pledged to "resource every level of government to a level that will provide protection to the people of our state".

The SES has begun giving the all clear for evacuated residents to return home after Sydney dodged the bulk of the rain.

Essential Energy said on Friday it had restored power to 37,500 customers in the north of the state, with 13,500 to go.

In western Sydney, Endeavour Energy estimates it will be several days before flood-damaged electricity infrastructure can be assessed after power was turned off at more than 900 low-lying properties along the Hawkesbury, Nepean and Colo Rivers on Thursday.

The Hawkesbury River could again peak at a moderate flood level near Wisemans Ferry on Saturday afternoon.

The SES is warning the river, north-west of Sydney, could hit 3.5 metres about 1pm with the high tide.

The Bureau of Meteorology has also issued a moderate flood warning for Tuggerah Lake, north of Sydney.

The SES says moderate to major flooding is possible along the Hawkesbury and Lower Nepean Rivers from Sunday with more rain forecast.

Over the next four days parts of NSW could see up to 100mm of rain and parts of the Hunter up to 150mm with severe thunderstorms, heavy rains and damaging winds forecast, said the BoM.

"We are not past the danger period yet. The rivers are very high, fast-flowing," NSW SES Commissioner Carlene York said.

Further rain over the weekend falling in saturated catchments could cause renewed river rises in areas already devastated by flooding.

Cash management providers Prosegur and Armaguard have delivered cash to Casino, Byron Bay and other towns around northern NSW as electronic payment systems were taken out of action and ATMs ran out of notes.

© AAP 2022

Australian researchers have discovered a new way some melanomas become resistant to targeted therapies, in a find that could knock out one of the killer cancer's fuel sources.

By deactivating a pathway that controls the so called metabolic switch for melanoma cells, scientists at Melbourne's Peter MacCallum oncology institute say they can delay their ability to resist treatments.

Targeting a specific gene mutation in a patient's cancer often achieves a high response rate and triggers few side effects, says the institute's Dr Lorey Smith.

In this case, the study for which she was lead author, specifically examined melanomas with a BRAF mutation, which occurs in roughly half all melanomas.

Around 80 per cent of patients who exhibit them will respond to targeted therapies at first but unfortunately these treatments don't provide a cure," Dr Smith says.

Most will ultimately relapse - the majority within a year or two - because the residual cancer in their body develops resistance to treatment.

"In some cases, there are no changes in the genetics of these cancer cells but changes in how their mRNA is processed and turned into proteins," Dr Smith said.

Essentially, the melanoma gets smarter in response to the treatment and learns how to outwit it by reprogramming the cancer cell's metabolism.

Developing this adaptive resistance allows some melanoma cells to survive and stay in the body until the coast is clear for them to start multiplying again.

By finding a new pathway that controls the cells' metabolic switch, however, Dr Smith and her colleagues were able to knock out one of the melanoma's potential fuel sources.

"Essentially, when we switch off this pathway, we're starving the cells," she said.

"We switch off the proteins the melanoma needs to adapt and develop resistance to the treatment."

This means targeted therapies would be effective for longer.

Although the focus this time is on melanoma research, Dr Smith hopes the findings can be applied to any BRAF-mutant cancer treated with such targeted therapies.

The Peter Mac team is also trying to develop a drug that directly targets the protein they found, which seems to play an important role in melanomas developing adaptive non-genetic resistance.

Meanwhile, not-for-profit Melanoma Institute Australia has launched its 11th annual campaign to raise awareness and funds to combat one of Australia's biggest killers.

This year's effort is aimed at raising $1 million to support a world-first personalised immunotherapy clinical trial for advanced melanoma.

Currently, 50 per cent of patients in this group don't respond to or develop resistance to the immunotherapy treatment which saves others.

© AAP 2022

Russian forces in Ukraine have seized Europe's biggest nuclear power plant in an assault that caused alarm around the world although officials said later that the facility was now safe.

Fighting also raged elsewhere in Ukraine as Russian forces besieged and bombarded several cities in the second week of an invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin said that what happens next in the negotiations over Ukraine will depend on Kyiv officials' reaction to this week's talks between the two sides.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call on Friday that no documents had been agreed with Ukraine at the talks but that Russia had told the Ukrainian side how it saw the solution to the war.

"The talks that took place were a good opportunity to clearly convey to the Ukrainian side our vision of solving this problem. Going forward, everything will depend on the reaction of the Ukrainian side," Peskov said.

He was speaking after a second round of talks held on Thursday, after which the two sides said they had reached an understanding on the need to create humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians.

Asked about a call by US Senator Lindsey Graham on Twitter for someone in Russia to "take out" Putin, Peskov said it was an example of hysterical Russophobia.

"Of course, these days not everyone is managing to preserve a sober mind, I would even say a sound mind," he said.

He called for national unity from Russians.

"Now is not the time to divide, now is the time for all to unite, be together, and unite of course around our president."

UN atomic chief Rafael Grossi said on Friday that no damage was done to reactors at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and there was no release of radioactive material after a military projectile hit a nearby building on the site.

Two members of security staff were injured when the projectile hit overnight after the Ukrainian authorities reported a battle with Russian troops near Europe's biggest power plant, which is operating at just a small fraction of its capacity with one of its six units still running.

At a news conference called at short notice, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Grossi showed an overhead shot of the site and the building that was hit, a training centre close to but separate from the row of reactor units.

"What we understand is that this projectile is a projectile that is coming from the Russian forces. We do not have details about the kind of projectile," Grossi said, adding that the radiation monitoring system at the site was functioning normally.

"We of course are fortunate that there was no release of radiation and that the integrity of the reactors in themselves was not compromised," he added.

Russia's Defence Ministry blamed the attack on Ukrainian "saboteurs".

Zaporizhzhia is the biggest of the country's four operational nuclear power plants, together providing about half of Ukraine's electricity.

Grossi suggested meeting Russian and Ukrainian officials at defunct power plant Chernobyl so that they could commit not to do anything to endanger nuclear security in Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine were considering his offer of a meeting at Chernobyl.

Grossi appealed overnight on both sides not to clash near Zaporizhzhia.

"I'm extremely concerned. This is something which is very, very fragile, very unstable as a situation," he said on Friday.

Kyiv, in the path of a Russian armoured column that has been stalled on a road for days, came under renewed attack on Friday, with explosions audible from the city centre.

In Kyiv's Borshchahivka neighbourhood, the twisted engine of a cruise missile lay in the street where it had apparently been downed overnight by Ukrainian air defences.

The southeastern port city of Mariupol has been encircled and shelled.

Its mayor said on Friday it had no water, heat or electricity and is running out of food after five days under attack.

"We are simply being destroyed," Mayor Vadym Boychenko said.

However, NATO allies on Friday rejected Ukraine's appeal for no-fly zones, saying they were increasing support but that stepping in directly would lead to a broader even more brutal European war.

Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz became the latest leader to phone Putin and demand he call off the war.

© RAW 2022