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More than 60,000 runners, joggers and walkers hit the streets of Sydney today for the return of the famous City2Surf.

The fun run from Hyde Park to Bondi Beach returned after it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

Tradie Liam Adams claimed the men's title, after completing the race n 41 minutes and eight seconds.

Leanne Pompeani took out the women's division in 45 minutes and 43 seconds.

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"I started feeling it at 10 kilometres, but I am really proud of that performance," Pompeani said.

"I am going to enjoy the day and it's nice to see people out here."

Gary Wonsely, 59, said he was incredibly happy to see the race back.

"It's my 24th City2Surf," he said.

"I really missed it and I love the crowd, love the community and love running."

The race kicked off at Hyde Park near Park and College streets before winding down William Street through Kings Cross tunnel and along New South Head Road.

Runners took on Vaucluse before curling south onto Old South Head Road and Military Road, and then Bondi.

READ MORE: Praise, worry in Iran after Rushdie attack; government quiet

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Every day Olga is bused from her home in the Russian-occupied town of Enerhodar, on the banks of the Dnipro River in southeastern Ukraine, to the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant where she works.

The plant, the largest nuclear complex of its kind in Europe, is the focal point of growing global concern after days of increased shelling have triggered calls for international experts to visit the facility and ratcheted fears of a potential nuclear accident.

Kyiv has repeatedly accused Russian forces, which seized the plant in March, of storing heavy weaponry inside the complex and using it as cover to launch attacks, knowing that Ukraine can't return fire without risking hitting one of the plant's six reactors — a mistake that would spell disaster.

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Moscow, meanwhile, has claimed Ukrainian troops are targeting the site.

Both sides have tried to point the finger at the other for threatening nuclear terrorism.

For Olga and her Ukrainian colleagues still working at the plant, the specter of nuclear disaster is not just the stuff of nightmares, it is a daily reality.

It is "like sleeping and watching a dream," she told CNN in a recent phone interview, describing the surreal, prolonged shock that she has experienced working at the plant, which though held by Russian forces, is still primarily operated by Ukrainian technicians.

In the months since the nuclear facility was captured, Ukrainian employees have slowly started to return, carrying out tasks in partly shattered rooms and only coming into contact with Russian soldiers when they cross through two checkpoints to get inside the complex.

"After the occupation, only operational personnel worked at the station. There were a lot of broken and burned rooms and windows," Olga, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, said.

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"Then they gradually began to go ask people to come to work for specific tasks.

"Now the part of the staff that did not leave is working. About 35 to 40 per cent of workers left."

The reduced staff and a flare in fighting are making working conditions increasingly tenuous.

Ukraine and Russia again traded blame after more shelling around the plant overnight on Thursday, just hours after the United Nations called on both sides to cease military activities near the power station, warning of the worst if they didn't.

"Regrettably, instead of de-escalation, over the past several days there have been reports of further deeply worrying incidents that could, if they continue, lead to disaster," UN secretary general, António Guterres, said in a statement.

"I urge the withdrawal of any military personnel and equipment from the plant and the avoidance of any further deployment of forces or equipment to the site."

Addressing a meeting of the UN security council in New York on Thursday, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said that recent attacks had knocked out parts of the plant, risking an "unacceptable" potential radiation leak and called for a team of experts to urgently be allowed to access the site, where the situation "has been deteriorating very rapidly."

READ MORE: Praise, worry in Iran after Rushdie attack; government quiet

"This is a serious hour, grave hour, and the IAEA must be allowed to conduct its mission in Zaporizhzhia as soon as possible," Grossi said.

Energoatom, Ukraine's state-run nuclear power company, accused Russian forces on Thursday of targeting a storage area for "radiation sources," and shelling a fire department nearby the plant.

A day later, the company said in a statement on its Telegram account that the plant was operating "with the risk of violating radiation and fire safety standards."

Ukraine's Interior Minister, Denys Monastyrskyi, said on Friday that there was "no adequate control" over the plant, and Ukrainian specialists who remained there were not allowed access to some areas where they should be.

CNN is unable to confirm the details provided by Energoatom or Monastyrskyi, but Grossi has said that some parts of the plant were inoperable.

Olga also confirmed that parts of the complex are inaccessible to Ukrainian staff.

Russia has continued to accuse Ukraine of being behind the attacks.

A local official in the occupation's administration, Vladimir Rogov, told Russian-state news agency Rossiya 24 channel on Friday that there was "constant damage" to the plant's power transmission line and suggested that the complex may be "mothballed" — without any explanation as to how that might happen.

Ukrainian authorities say that Russian rockets fired from the nuclear power plant have pummeled the city of Nikopol, on the right bank of the Dnipro River, and surrounding districts over the last week.

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At least 13 people were killed in the shelling overnight on Tuesday, and several more were injured on Wednesday and Thursday evening, including a 13-year-old girl, according to local officials.

Over the last few months, Olga said she has seen Russian military equipment arriving at the nuclear complex, though much of it has now been hidden from view.

"Initially, there was equipment on the territory of the station, now there is even more of it," she said, adding that employees are not allowed in the areas where it is being stored.

But when she returns home from work, Russia's firepower is clear, she said. "Horrors happen at night, they are f—ing shelling the city.

"The incoming hit on the right bank (of the river) rattles so much that the houses shake and the windows tremble. It's creepy in the silence of the night when people are sleeping," she added.

Across the Dnipro, in Nikopol, the attacks now feel relentless.

From the window of her home near the city's port, Oksana Miraevska can look across the water and see the volley of incoming shells.

"If something happens with the power plant, some accident… I can't think about that," Miraevska, a 45-year-old small business owner, told CNN in a phone call.

"Do you think something could help us? We are 7 kilometers from the nuclear power plant across the river! Nothing will save us, I'm sure.

"That's why I don't even entertain that thought."

When the shelling flared last month, Miraevska said many residents fled in panic, but she stayed behind trying to help locally, mostly taking in abandoned pets.

At night, she and her teenage son take the animals downstairs to their basement-turned-bomb shelter, where they all sleep.

"When they started shelling us, then in general life changed. I live in the basement, we go there for the night. We have been sleeping there for a month now," Miraevska said.

"I don't think the enemy should be underestimated," she added.

It's the same message being echoed by international experts warning of the disastrous impact one errant shell could cause.

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Last weekend, shellfire damaged a dry storage facility, where casks of spent nuclear fuel are kept at the plant, as well as radiation monitoring detectors, making detection of any potential leak impossible, according to Energoatom.

Attacks also damaged a high-voltage power line and forced one of the plant's reactors to stop operating.

That uptick in shelling pushed the IAEA to intensify its efforts to send an expert mission to visit the plant to assess and safeguard the complex.

While an initial assessment by experts found "no immediate threat to nuclear safety" at the plant, Grossi said on Thursday that "this could change at any moment."

He added that while the agency was in frequent touch with Ukrainian and Russian authorities about the plant, the information provided was "contradictory."

Demands for a cessation of hostilities have grown over the last week.

The G7 group of major industrialised nations issued a statement from their meeting in Germany on Wednesday calling on Russia to withdraw its forces and hand over control of the plant to Ukraine.

The statement laid blame at the feet of the Russian armed forces, who the G7 countries said were "significantly raising the risk of a nuclear accident or incident and endangering the population of Ukraine, neighboring states and the international community."

A State Department spokesperson on Thursday said that the United States backed calls for a "demilitarised zone" around the nuclear power plant and demanded Russia "cease all military operations at or near Ukrainian nuclear facilities."

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Hundreds of people were evacuated from a high-rise residential tower in Sydney's CBD this morning after a fire broke out on the eighth floor.

Fire and Rescue NSW were called to the 37-floor building around 1am and were forced to evacuate about 500 people after a blaze broke out inside a unit.

Seven fire trucks were rushed to the scene and worked quickly to clear the building while police redirected traffic.

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The fire was extinguished by the building's sprinkler system and after two hours residents were able to go back inside.

Fire crews believe a mattress caught alight within the apartment.

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The man accused in the stabbing attack on Salman Rushdie pleaded not guilty on Saturday to attempted murder and assault charges in what a prosecutor called a “preplanned” crime, as the renowned author of The Satanic Verses remained hospitalised with serious injuries.

An attorney for Hadi Matar entered the plea on his behalf during an arraignment in western New York. The suspect appeared in court wearing a black and white jumpsuit and a white face mask, with his hands cuffed in front of him.

A judge ordered him held without bail after District Attorney Jason Schmidt told her Matar took steps to purposely put himself in position to harm Rushdie, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early bearing a fake ID.

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“This was a targeted, unprovoked, preplanned attack on Mr Rushdie,” Schmidt said.

Public defender Nathaniel Barone complained that authorities had taken too long to get Matar in front of a judge while leaving him “hooked up to a bench at the state police barracks".

“He has that constitutional right of presumed innocence,” Barone added.

Matar, 24, is accused of attacking Rushdie on Friday as the author was being introduced at a lecture at the Chautauqua Institute, a nonprofit education and retreat centre.

Rushdie, 75, suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, and was on a ventilator and unable to speak, his agent Andrew Wylie said Friday evening. Rushdie was likely to lose the injured eye.

The attack was met with shock and outrage from much of the world, along with tributes and praise for the award-winning author who for more than 30 years has faced death threats for The Satanic Verses.

Authors, activists and government officials cited Rushdie's courage and longtime advocacy of free speech despite the risks to his own safety. Writer and longtime friend Ian McEwan called Rushdie “an inspirational defender of persecuted writers and journalists across the world,” and actor-author Kal Penn cited him as a role model “for an entire generation of artists, especially many of us in the South Asian diaspora toward whom he’s shown incredible warmth".

President Joe Biden said on Saturday in a statement that he and first lady Jill Biden were “shocked and saddened” by the attack.

“Salman Rushdie – with his insight into humanity, with his unmatched sense for story, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced – stands for essential, universal ideals,” the statement read.

“Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear. These are the building blocks of any free and open society.”

READ MORE: Praise, worry in Iran after Rushdie attack; government quiet

Rushdie, a native of India who has since lived in Britain and the US, is known for his surreal and satirical prose style, beginning with his Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel Midnight's Children, in which he sharply criticised India's then-prime minister, Indira Gandhi.

The Satanic Verses drew death threats after it was published in 1988, with many Muslims regarding as blasphemy a dream sequence based on the life of the Prophet Muhammad, among other objections. Rushdie's book had already been banned and burned in India, Pakistan and elsewhere before Iran's Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989.

READ MORE: Praise, worry in Iran after Rushdie attack; government quiet

Khomeini died that same year, but the fatwa remains in effect. Iran’s current supreme leader, Khamenei, never issued a fatwa of his own withdrawing the edict, though Iran in recent years hasn’t focused on the writer.

Investigators were working to determine whether the assailant, born a decade after The Satanic Verses was published, acted alone.

District Attorney Schmidt alluded to the fatwa as a potential motive in arguing against bail.

“Even if this court were to set a million dollars bail, we stand a risk that bail could be met,” Schmidt said.

“His resources don’t matter to me. We understand that the agenda that was carried out yesterday is something that was adopted and it’s sanctioned by larger groups and organisations well beyond the jurisdictional borders of Chautauqua County,” the prosecutor said.

Barone, the public defender, said after the hearing that Matar has been communicating openly with him and that he would spend the coming weeks trying to learn about his client, including whether he has psychological or addiction issues.

Matar is from Fairview, New Jersey. Rosaria Calabrese, manager of the State of Fitness Boxing Club, a small, tightly knit gym in nearby North Bergen, said Matar joined April 11 and participated in about 27 group sessions for beginners looking to improve their fitness before emailing her several days ago to say he wanted to cancel his membership because “he wouldn’t be coming back for a while".

Gym owner Desmond Boyle said he saw “nothing violent” about Matar, describing him as polite and quiet, yet someone who always looked “tremendously sad". He said Matar resisted attempts by him and others to welcome and engage him.

“He had this look every time he came in. It looked like it was the worst day of his life,” Boyle said.

Matar was born in the United States to parents who emigrated from Yaroun in southern Lebanon, the mayor of the village, Ali Tehfe, told The Associated Press.

Flags are visible across the village of Iran-backed Shia militant group Hezbollah and portraits of leader Hassan Nasrallah, Khamenei, Khomeini and slain Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

Journalists visiting Yaroun on Saturday were asked to leave. Hezbollah spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.

Iran’s theocratic government and its state-run media assigned no motive for the attack. In Tehran, some Iranians interviewed by the AP praised the attack on an author they believe tarnished the Islamic faith, while others worried it would further isolate their country.

READ MORE: Salman Rushdie on ventilator, likely to lose eye after stabbing

An AP reporter witnessed the attacker stab or punch Rushdie about 10 or 15 times. Dr Martin Haskell, a physician who was among those who rushed to help, described Rushdie’s wounds as “serious but recoverable".

Event moderator Henry Reese, 73, suffered a facial injury and was treated and released from a hospital, police said. He and Rushdie had planned to discuss the United States as a refuge for writers and other artists in exile.

A state trooper and a county sheriff’s deputy were assigned to Rushdie’s lecture, and state police said the trooper made the arrest. But afterwards, some longtime visitors to the centre questioned why there wasn’t tighter security given the threats against Rushdie and a bounty of more than $3 million on his head.

News about the stabbing has led to renewed interest in The Satanic Verses, which topped best-seller lists after the fatwa was issued in 1989. As of Saturday afternoon, the novel ranked No. 13 on Amazon.com.

The book's publication in 1988 sparked often-violent protests around the Muslim world against Rushdie, who was born to a Muslim family and has long identified as a nonbeliever, once calling himself “a hardline atheist".

At least 45 people were killed in riots, including 12 in Rushdie’s hometown of Mumbai. In 1991, a Japanese translator of the book was stabbed to death and an Italian translator survived a knife attack. In 1993, the book’s Norwegian publisher was shot three times and survived.

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The death threats and bounty led Rushdie to go into hiding under a British government protection program, which included an around-the-clock armed guard. After nine years of seclusion, Rushdie cautiously resumed more public appearances, maintaining his outspoken criticism of religious extremism overall.

In 2012 he published a memoir about the fatwa titled Joseph Anton, the pseudonym Rushdie used while in hiding.

He said during a New York talk that year that terrorism was really the art of fear: “The only way you can defeat it is by deciding not to be afraid".

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