the archbishop of the Diocese of Seville. The mayors of the city during this period were directly appointed by the Minister of the Interior, usually those nominated by these military, political and religious authorities. Under Francisco Franco's rule Spain was officially neutral in World War II (although it did collaborate with the Axis powers), and like the rest of the country, Seville remained largely economically and culturally isolated from the outside world. One of the most significant events of this period occurred on 13 March 1941 with the explosion of the gunpowder stored in the magazine of Santa Barbara, located in the Cerro del Aguila (Eagle Hill), destroying ten surrounding blocks and damaging many more. Calle José Arpa, where the depot was located, was destroyed, as well as the streets Huesca, Galicia, Lisbon, Afan de Ribera and part of Héroes de Toledo. The magazine was not a military facility, but belonged to the Sociedad Española de Explosivos (Spanish Society of Explosives). In 1953, during the full autarky of Franco, the shipyard of Seville was opened, eventually employing more than 2,000 workers in the 1970s despite the production of the larger vessels demanded by the maritime market being hindered by the shallowness of the Guadalquivir River. Before the existence of wetlands regulation in the Guadalquivir basin, Seville suffered regular heavy flooding; perhaps worst of all were the floods that occurred in November 1961 when the river Tamarguillo overflowed as a result of a prodigious downpour of rain in which three hundred litres of water per square metre fell in a short period. Entire neighbourhoods were inundated: La Calzada, Cerro del Águila, San Bernardo, El Fontanal, Tiro de Línea, and La Puerta de Jerez, the waters penetrating as far as La Campana. Seville was consequently declared a disaster zone. A month later, so many Sevillians were still homeless that the popular radio host Bobby Deglané organised a relief motorcade from Madrid, the so-called 'Operación Clavel' (Operation Clavel), which ended in tragedy with the crash of a chartered aeroplane leading the way to publicise the event. In 1955 the large municipal residential sanitarium, Virgen del Rocio, originally called the Residencia Garcia Morato, was opened. The next fifteen years saw the largest urban expansion of the city yet, with the reconstruction of many neighbourhoods, the upper middle class barrio of Los Remedios exemplifying this urban redevelopment; the Seville Fair, previously held at the Prado