The top photos of the day by AP photojournalists

Soldiers and emergency workers are combing through a badly damaged shopping mall and collapsed houses looking for trapped survivors Wednesday after a powerful earthquake that killed at least 18 people in southwestern Japan. A magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit a day earlier in the Kumamoto area on the southern main island of Kyushu. The prefectural government said it left at least 62 people injured, six of them seriously. The tally has been steadily growing, fanning fears it may continue to rise. It remains unclear how many people might still be missing.