Britain has rescued three Afghan families whose contact details had been listed in documents left behind at its embassy in Kabul and seized by the Taliban, the Foreign Office said.

British Foreign Office staff had left documents with the contact details of Afghans working for them scattered on the ground at the embassy compound in Kabul, the Times newspaper reported.

The documents identifying seven Afghans were found by reporters on Tuesday as Taliban fighters patrolled the embassy, the newspaper said. It said it handed the details of three Afghan staff and their eight family members to the Foreign Office.

“Crucially we have now been able to get these three families to safety,” a Foreign Office spokesperson told Reuters late on Thursday. “The drawdown of our embassy was done at pace as the situation in Kabul deteriorated. Every effort was made to destroy sensitive material.”

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan less than two weeks ago from a US-backed government, sending thousands fleeing and potentially heralding a return to the militants’ austere and autocratic rule of two decades ago.

The Times reported that such was the British surprise at the speed of the capture of Kabul that the embassy’s evacuation protocols, which included destruction of all data that could compromise Afghan staff, had broken down.

The documents included names, addresses, and contact details, as well as the CVs and addresses of applicants for jobs as interpreters, the newspaper reported.

Calls made by the Times to numbers on the abandoned documents revealed that some of those listed had been evacuated to the UK in the past few days.

The fate of at least two job applicants for positions as interpreters remains unknown, according to the newspaper.