The numbers have been inconceivable: more than 150,000 dead, many more missing, thousands of children left without parents.

Some Mainers have reacted to the tsunamis in South Asia by donating money.

Others have taken a different approach. They called statewide adoption agencies to find out if and how they could provide homes to the hungry and lost children whose faces have been appearing on the front pages of their newspapers.

Maine Adoption Placement Services, an international adoption agency based in Portland, has fielded calls from more than three dozen people interested in adopting children from the area.

Another agency, International Adoption Services Centre based in Gardiner, has been getting an average of five calls a day.

Both agencies have offered the same response: It could be a year before any of the children in South Asia are declared legitimate orphans. In the meantime, there are hundreds of children in other countries waiting for good homes.

Other kids available

“We really want to honor and appreciate that these people are thinking of those specific children,” said Betsy Bewsey, director of MAPS’ international office. “But we also tell them that there are lots of kids out there whose futures look just as dire who are available now.”

Bewsey’s messages echoes a statement recently issued by the U.S. Department of State.

In response to inquiries from hundreds of families across the country, federal officials announced that it would not be possible for U.S. citizens to adopt children who have been orphaned by the tsunami disaster.

The international standard in a crisis is to keep children as close to their family members as possible, and it can be extremely difficult to determine whether children whose parents are missing are truly orphans, the State Department explains on its Web site.

Many children who lost their parents to the tsunamis will be taken in by other family members, but it may take months to match those children with their living relatives or other people from the community, the statement continued.

MAPS has adoption programs in several countries throughout the world, including a small program with India, one of the countries hit by the tsunamis.

Since the Indian program started in 1995, the agency has placed 18 children from that country with families across the United States.

That number may go up as more children are identified as orphans, but it is hard to predict if or when that could happen, Bewsey said.

A program in Thailand

The other Maine-based agency, International Adoption Services Centre, does not have any programs in the region hit by the tsunamis in late December.

Director Luann Atwood has been directing some callers to HOLT International, an adoption agency in Oregon with a large program in Thailand. However, she warns them that the process may not be as easy as they think.

“The children have to be considered legal orphans, and that hasn’t happened yet,” Atwood said.

Both Atwood and Bewsey said the calls are coming from people who had already been considering adoption, as well as from those who simply saw it as a way to help.

The calls, they said, have come from all over Maine.

Sharon Abrams, the executive director of the adoption program associated with Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers in Waterville, said Tuesday that she hasn’t received as many calls as the other agencies.

She speculated that the word is already out.

“The public seems pretty aware that it is not an option,” she said. “It’s simply not a legal opportunity at this time.”