The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council gave a smaller estimate, saying there were close to 22,000 evacuees.
Placing the province under a state of calamity will give the province access to extra funds.
“This kind of eruption, it will take about weeks, so we have to sustain the operations in the evacuation centers,” Bichara told ANC news channel. “We need to use the calamity funds.”
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said it had recorded nine more tremors, four of which accompanied lava fountains, as pressure leads to lava flows and ash plumes.
It reiterated that the activity signified a possible hazardous eruption within weeks or even days from the near perfectly cone-shaped volcano.
The provincial government has also expanded its suspension of school classes to more towns around the 2,462-metre (8,077-foot) volcano, about 340 km (210 miles) southeast of Manila.
Class suspensions have allowed the government to use schools as temporary shelters.
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