Eruption started at Nyiragongo?

Nyiragongo as seen from Goma, Congo in 2002.

There isn’t much to go on so far, but there are indications that an eruption has started at Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Satellite images has found “thermal anomalies” at the summit and along a 3-km swath of the eastern and western slopes. The report mentions that these could be “fires and /or volcanic material” and more interestingly, noticed at least 6 times since April 10, 2009. From the sound of it, this might be multiple vents or a central summit vent with lava flows going to multiple sides of the volcano. The Volcanism Blog has some more images of the hot spots as well. We know that the volcano was looking primed to erupt over the last few months and hopefully we’ll get some eye-witness accounts to corroborate the satellite data.