Barcelona and large swathes of Spain’s northeast are going under water restrictions as a months-long drought that has devastated crops starts to put the pinch on human activities in the Mediterranean country.

The measures taking effect Friday will include reductions on water for the irrigation of crops and industry.

City dwellers won’t be permitted to use drinking water to wash the exterior of houses or cars or to fill swimming pools.

Over 500 town halls, including Barcelona, must stop filling public fountains or cleaning streets with drinking water.

Below-average rainfall that experts have linked to global climate change has shrunken reservoirs anddamaged agriculture and the environment across Spain.

Barcelona now becomes the second major city in Spain to limit water use after Seville did so with similar measures in September following an extremely dry, hot summer.

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While reservoirs in Spain’s south near Seville are now the driest, Catalonia’s water reservoirs are down to 34% of capacity, according to Spain’s ministry for the ecological transition.

In 2008, a prolonged drought forced Spanish authorities to bring in water to Barcelona via boat to guarantee domestic use.

That led to the construction of a desalination plant near Barcelona that local authorities say is the largest in Europe with a capacity to produce 60 hm3 in a year. It is now running at 90% capacity, authorities said.

Plaja said even if rains eventually provide some relief, “the climate context (means) that Catalonia will suffer longer and more frequent droughts” like other areas of Spain and the wider region.

Iran has begun producing enriched uranium at 60% purity at the country’s underground Fordo nuclear plant, official media reported Tuesday, describing it as a response to a resolution by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.

The increased enrichment, reported by the official news agency IRNA, was seen as a significant addition to the country’s nuclear program.

Enrichment to 60% purity is one short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Nonproliferation experts have warned in recent months that Iran now has enough 60%-enriched uranium to reprocess into fuel for at least one nuclear bomb.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that Iran is enriching uranium to 60% purity. Iran is already enriching to 60% purity at its Natanz nuclear facility in central Iran. Fordo is some 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of the capital of Tehran.

IRNA did not give details on the amount of the enriched uranium being produced.

On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, said his country took the steps in reaction to what he said was a resolution by the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog. Officials did not elaborate.

Earlier this month, the IAEA said it believes that Iran has further increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. As recently as last week, the agency criticized Tehran for continuing to bar the agency’s officials from accessing or monitoring Iranian nuclear sites.

A strong 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the Solomon Islands on Tuesday, with eyewitnesses reporting violent shaking that hurled items to the ground and knocked out power in parts of the capital Honiara.

“This was a big one,” Joy Nisha, a receptionist with the Heritage Park Hotel in the capital Honiara said. “Some of the things in the hotel fell. Everyone seems OK, but panicky.”

There were no immediate reports of serious structural damage to buildings, but power was out in some areas of the city and people were rushing from their offices and fleeing to higher ground.

The nation’s attorney general, John Muria, posted images on social media of office files spilled from large metal filing cabinets.

The US Geological Survey revised the earthquake’s magnitude down from an initial 7.3.

The earthquake struck at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometres, just off the southwest coast of Guadalcanal island.

A tsunami warning was issued for an area of the Solomons coast within 300 kilometres (185 miles) of the epicentre.

“Tsunami waves reaching 0.3 to 1 meters above the tide level are possible for some coasts” in the area, a UN-backed Pacific warning system said.

Some coastal regions of Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu were also put on alert for tsunami waves of up to 30 centimetres (12 inches).

According to UN data, about 20,000 people live within 50 kilometres of the epicentre.

The Solomons — a sprawling archipelago in the South Pacific — is home to about 800,000 people.