Tourists heading for Peru face disruption to their travel plans following the massive earthquake which rocked the city of Arequipa and parts of southern Peru on 23 June.

While most tour operators are going ahead with their Peru tours as scheduled, the Foreign Office has urged visitors to Arequipa to exercise extreme caution in the centre, which has many badly damaged buildings and has suffered several aftershocks. There is still a risk of further tremors.

Arequipa, which has been declared a world cultural treasure by the United Nations, features on many tours of the country. The cathedral and other historic buildings have been damaged. The airport and major hotels are functioning but several roads into the city are blocked making road access from Lima impossible.

Explore Worldwide said its tours would depart as normal. Product manager John Telfer said: 'The main attractions such as Cuzco, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and the Amazon are completely unaffected. It's still totally viable to visit Peru.'

Tours which were scheduled to visit Arequipa would travel from Lima by air or reroute to Cuzco, he added.

Kuoni has had no cancellations so far and will run its next tour as scheduled, amending the itinerary to exclude Arequipa if necessary. Bales Worldwide said it was monitoring Foreign Office advice and will make a decision next week about whether its escorted Peru itineraries will be altered.

At least 100 people died and more than 1,300 were injured by the quake, which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale. Journey Latin America marketing manager Tim Murray-Walker said tourist casualties in the area could have been higher had it not been for the Inta Raymi Inca sun festival which attracted thousands of tourists to Cuzco on the same weekend.

Backpacker Alex Noyse was travelling on a bus from Arequipa to the Colca Canyon when the earthquake hit. 'The bus started shaking like mad. I thought it was going to blow up. I only found out afterwards that we'd experienced an earthquake. The city's in a bit of a mess. The cathedral's badly damaged and various streets are cordoned off with rubble and glass all over the place. People are worried there's going to be an aftershock and damaged buildings are going to fall on their heads.'

Peru is in an earthquake zone. Tremors, which are usually minor, can happen in Lima, Arequipa, Cuzco and other main tourist areas without warning.