  We study the instability of multiply charged vortices in the presence of
thermal atoms and find various scenarios of splitting of such vortices. The
onset of the decay of a vortex is always preceded by the increase of a number
of thermal (uncondensed) atoms in the system and manifests itself by the sudden
rise of the amplitude of the oscillations of the quadrupole moment. Our
calculations show that the decay time gets shorter when the multiplicity of a
vortex becomes higher.
