Did LTT die in the Prolougue and was there a reason why he did what he did?

While the description is indeed similar to balefire's, I never thought it was it, mainly because of the fact that in every instance we've seen balefire used it always originate from the channeler.

I think LTT wanted to kill himself. He could have simply drawn too much of the Power and burst from it (like in Aginor's case), or thrown himself off a cliff, but I believe he felt so guilty for what he had done he wanted a fitting punishment (in some twisted way). Thus he called that whatever-it-was from the sky, as powerful as he could form it, and literally, utterly obliterated himself from the face of the earth.

IMHO anyway  ;D