Members of Extinction Rebellion have used a fire engine to spray 1,800 litres of fake blood over the Treasury building in Central London.

After the stunt on Thursday morning, four activists stood atop the vehicle which was covered in a banner saying “Stop funding climate death”.

The climate change activists drove up to the Treasury and sprayed red paint through the hose onto the building, though at one point they appeared to lose control, covering themselves and the fire engine.

“The Treasury has been frustrating efforts by other government departments to take action against climate change, because it cares only about economic growth,” one of the activists, named Ben, told Reuters.

“It doesn’t see that eternal economic growth leads to climate death,” Ben said. “The red symbolises the people dying now in the global south and also the people who are going to start dying from climate change all around the world if we do nothing.”

The Extinction Rebellion group disrupted London with 11 days of protests in April that it cast as the biggest act of civil disobedience in recent British history. Iconic locations were blocked, the Shell building was defaced, trains were stopped and Goldman Sachs was targeted.