International adoptions of children from China have been suspended indefinitely because of the SARS epidemic, the Chinese government announced yesterday.

The government's China Center for Adoption Affairs posted the notice on its Web site, delivering heartbreaking news to prospective parents, some of whom had received photos of the children they were on the verge of adopting.

"It's just an empty, horrible feeling," said Jaime Fall of Prince William County, who was preparing to travel to Yunnan province in southern China with his wife, Tammy, to pick up a baby girl.

Depending on its duration, the suspension also is an economic blow to China's lucrative adoption business. More than 5,000 children were adopted by U.S. parents last year, making China the largest source of international adoptions in the United States, according to the State Department. In the past seven years, more than 30,000 Chinese children have been brought to this country.

At the end of April -- more than a month after health alerts were first sounded about severe acute respiratory syndrome -- the central Chinese adoption agency shut down for nine days. But its public notice at the time did not mention SARS and instead referred to the May 1 national holiday, when businesses are traditionally closed, and to the office being closed for renovations.

Yesterday's notice by the agency specifically referred to SARS and said adoptions were being postponed to "avoid cross infection that might be caused by a flow of people, and to guarantee the health and safety of life for the parties of adoptive relations."

China's government is enforcing tougher measures to control SARS and announced an intention to execute anyone who spreads the virus deliberately.

Prospective parents have continued to travel to China since the SARS outbreak, despite warnings from the World Health Organization and the U.S. State Department. The Falls, who were expecting travel documents to arrive from Beijing this week, said they are worried that their 10-month-old daughter might get sick if she stays in China.

"We don't know what the situation is where she is . . . if there are people in the area with SARS or if there is good medical care there," said Jaime Fall, 37.

The Beijing agency's decision means that no new referrals of children will be made and no travel documents will be issued to prospective parents until the suspension is lifted. The agency also advised parents who have received paperwork to postpone travel to China.

U.S. officials say adoption decisions are ultimately up to the Chinese government. The State Department handles only the processing of visas for the children, and because of SARS it has relaxed rules so that only one parent has to travel to Guangzhou -- where the SARS outbreak was first reported -- for the visa.

Bethany Christian Services, a U.S. nonprofit agency that handles more than 200 Chinese adoptions a year, said about eight of its clients were expected to leave today for China. Bethany officials hope that the latest news from Beijing will not affect those families, who have travel documents in hand. But "it's day to day," said spokeswoman Dawn Dean.

David Schiff and Cathy Wollman of Rockville sent a jubilant e-mail to friends this week, saying they would be boarding a flight to China yesterday.

The couple, featured last month in a Washington Post article on adoptions, had said the anxiety of waiting for their little girl was worse than any fear of SARS. It was unclear whether the latest announcement would affect their adoption, and efforts to reach them and their adoption agency yesterday were unsuccessful.

Mary Chamberlain, director of the China adoptions program for World Child International in Silver Spring, said the suspension would affect about 10 families a month at her agency. She said many prospective parents have mixed emotions; though saddened by the delay in adoptions, they are relieved because the Chinese government's announcement "takes the pressure off of them to make the decision whether to travel or not," she said.

A few suspected SARS cases have been connected to adoption travel to China, including the illness of a Millersville woman who was quarantined in her home shortly after she returned and developed symptoms. A baby in Florida and another in Massachusetts were classified as "probable" SARS cases by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Since the relaxation of adoption laws by Beijing in the mid-1990s, adoptions have become an economic boon for the Chinese government while helping to relieve one of the nation's most difficult social quandaries. Because of China's one-child policy for population control and the traditional preference of Chinese families for male children, thousands of baby girls are abandoned each year.

Families pay as much as $15,000 for an adoption, with about $3,000 to $5,000 as a mandatory "donation" to the orphanage. Hotels and stores have been built around Guangzhou to cater to the thousands of Americans who come through the city to get their visas processed at the U.S. consulate there.

Western officials have also said that the media scrutiny given to international adoptions and the generosity of adoptive parents, who often donate goods to orphanages, have helped improve living conditions in once-crowded orphanages.

In recent years, China has developed a reputation among U.S. adoption agencies as being organized and efficient. Some adoption directors say Chinese officials have worked hard to match up babies to parents -- even, for example, placing a baby who responds to music with parents who are musicians.