Havana  - Cuban President Raul Castro expressed condolences to victims of the earthquake that left more than 50,000 people dead in China last week, Cuban media reported Thursday.

He also sent condolences on behalf of his brother, former president Fidel Castro.

"At this time of profound pain for the People's Republic of China, we pay tribute to the victims of the earthquake of May 12 and we express our heart-felt condolences to their relatives, to the people, to the Communist Party," Raul Castro wrote in a book of condolences at the Chinese embassy in Havana.

The Cuban Communist Party daily Granma reported that he went to the Chinese diplomatic mission along with vice presidents Carlos Lage Davila and Esteban Lazo Hernandez, former revolutionary commanders Juan Almeida and Ramiro Valdes, and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque. (dpa)